The only man who wasn’t laughing was the fat-bellied storyteller, too shook up from his own recounting of his meeting with the drow. “Still,” he said above the commotion, “when I think of those purple eyes staring out at me from under that cowl!”
Roddy’s smile disappeared in the blink of an eye. “Purple eyes?” he barely managed to gasp. Roddy had encountered many creatures that used infravision, the heat-sensing sight most common among denizens of the Underdark, and he knew that normally, such eyes showed as dots of red. Roddy still remembered vividly the purple eyes looking down at him when he was trapped under the maple tree. He knew then, and he knew now, that those strange-hued orbs were a rarity even among the dark elves.
Those in the group closest to Roddy stopped their laughing, thinking that Roddy’s question shed doubt on the truth of the man’s tale.
“They were purple,” the fat-bellied man insisted, though there was little conviction in his shaky voice. The men around him waited for Roddy’s agreement or rebuttal, not knowing whether or not to laugh at the storyteller.
“What weapons did the drow wield?” Roddy asked grimly, rising ominously to his feet.
The man thought for a moment. “Curved swords,” he blurted.
“Scimitars?”
“Scimitars,” the other agreed.
“Did the drow say his name?” Roddy asked, and when the man hesitated, Roddy grabbed him by the collar and pulled him over the table. “Did the drow say his name?” the bounty hunter said again, his breath hot on the fat-bellied man’s face.
“No… er, uh, Driz… ”
“Drizzit?”
The man shrugged helplessly, and Roddy threw him back to his feet. “Where?” the bounty hunter roared. “And when?”
“Lurkwood,” the quivering, full-bellied man said again. “Three weeks ago. Drow’s going to Mirabar with the Weeping Friars, I would guess.” Most of the crowd groaned at the mention of the fanatic religious group. The Weeping Friars were a ragged band of begging sufferers who believed—or claimed to believe—that there was a finite amount of pain in the world. The more suffering they took on themselves, the friars said, the less remained for the rest of world to endure. Nearly everyone scorned the order. Some were sincere, but some begged for trinkets, promising to suffer horribly for the good of the giver.
“Those were the drow’s companions,” the fat-bellied man continued. “They always go to Mirabar, go to find the cold, as winter comes on.”
“Long way,” someone remarked.
“Longer,” said another. “The Weeping Friars always take the tunnel route.”
“Three hundred miles,” the first man who had recognized Roddy put in, trying to calm the agitated bounty hunter. But Roddy never even heard him. His dog in tow, he spun away and stormed out of Berry’s, slamming the door behind him and leaving the whole group mumbling to each other in absolute surprise.
“It was Drizzit that took Roddy’s dog and ear,” the man went on, now turning his attention to the group. He had no previous knowledge of the strange drow’s name; he merely had made an assumption based on Roddy’s reaction. Now the group flowed around him, holding their collective breath for him to tell them of the tale of Roddy McGristle and the purple-eyed drow. Like any proper patron of Derry’s, the man didn’t let lack of real knowledge deter him from telling the tale. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and began, filling in the considerable blanks with whatever sounded appropriate.
A hundred more gasps and claps of appreciation and startled delight echoed on the street outside of Derry’s that night, but Roddy McGristle and his yellow dog, their wagon wheels already thick in the mud of the Long Road, heard none of them.
“Hey, what-are-you-doing?” came a weary complaint from a sack behind Roddy’s bench. Tephanis crawled out. “Why-are-we-leaving?”
Roddy twisted about and took a swipe, but Tephanis, even sleepy-eyed, had no trouble darting out of harm’s way.
“Ye lied to me, ye cousin to a kobold!” Roddy growled. “Ye telled me that the drow was dead. But he’s not! He’s on the road to Mirabar, and I mean to catch him!”
“Mirabar?” Tephanis cried. “Too-far, too-far!” The quickling and Roddy had passed through Mirabar the previous spring. Tephanis thought it a perfectly miserable place, full of grim-faced dwarves, sharp-eyed men, and a wind much too cold for his liking. “We-must-go-south-for-the-winter. South-where-it-is-warm!”
Roddy’s ensuing glare silenced the sprite. “I’ll forget what ye did to me,” he snarled, then he added an ominous warning, “if we get the drow.” He turned from Tephanis then, and the sprite crawled back into his sack, feeling miserable and wondering if Roddy McGristle was worth the trouble. Roddy drove through the night, bending low to urge his horse onward and muttering “Six years!” over and over.
Drizzt huddled close to the fire that roared out of an old ore barrel the group had found. This would be the drow’s seventh winter on the surface, but still he remained uncomfortable in the chill. He had spent decades, and his people had lived for many millennia, in the seasonless and warm Underdark. Although winter was still months away, its approach was evident in the chill winds blowing down from the Spine of the World Mountains. Drizzt wore only an old blanket, thin and torn, over his clothes, chain mail, and weapon belt.
The drow smiled when he noticed his companions fidgeting and huffing over who got the next draw on a bottle of wine they had begged and how much the last drinker had taken. Drizzt was alone at the barrel now; the Weeping Friars, while not actually shunning the drow, didn’t often go near him. Drizzt accepted this and knew that the fanatics appreciated his companionship for practical, if not aesthetic, reasons. Some of the band actually enjoyed attacks by the various monsters of the land, viewing them as opportunities for some true suffering, but the more pragmatic of the group appreciated having the armed and skilled drow around for protection.
The relationship was acceptable to Drizzt, if not fulfilling. He had left Mooshie’s Grove years ago filled with hope, but hope tempered by the realities of his existence. Time after time, Drizzt had approached a village only to be put out behind a wall of harsh words, curses, and drawn weapons. Every time, Drizzt shrugged away the snubbing. True to his ranger spirit—for Drizzt was indeed a ranger now, in training as well as in heart—he accepted his lot stoically.
The last rejection had shown Drizzt that his resolve was wearing thin, though. He had been turned away from Luskan, on the Sword Coast, but not by any guards, for he had never even approached the place. Drizzt’s own fears had kept him away, and that fact had frightened him more than any swords he had ever faced. On the road outside the city, Drizzt had met up with this handful of Weeping Friars, and the outcasts had tentatively accepted him, as much because they had no means to keep him out as because they were too full of their own wretchedness to care about any racial differences. Two of the group had even thrown themselves at Drizzt’s feet, begging him to unleash his “dark elf terrors” and make them suffer.
Through the spring and summer, the relationship had evolved with Drizzt serving as silent guardian while the friars went about their begging and suffering ways. All in all, it was quite distasteful, even sometimes deceitful, to the principled drow, but Drizzt had found no other options.
Drizzt stared into the leaping flames and considered his fate. He still had Guenhwyvar at his call and had put his scimitars and bow to gainful use many times. Every day he told himself that beside the somewhat helpless fanatics, he was serving Mielikki, and his own heart, well. Still, he did not hold the friars in high regard and did not call them friends. Watching the five men now, drunk and slobbering all over each other, Drizzt suspected that he never would.