Not pausing to figure it out, Tiago put his feet under him, sprang up and charged, then leaped high into the air and brought Vidrinath down in a powerful overhand chop. The magnificent sword cleaved Errtu’s head in two, right down the middle, and both halves flapped weirdly as the balor sank to its knees. Somehow, though it had no mouth left, the great demon issued a huge, agonized bellow, a cry of rage and denial, an echoing promise and threat, “A hundred years is not so long a time, Drizzt Do’Urden!”
Errtu melted into the ground.
Tiago looked past the charred spot to see Yerrininae standing before him, great trident in hand, the weapon dripping the blood and ichor of the slain balor.
“He thought you Drizzt,” the drider said. “That is a good thing.”
“Let the beast know it was Tiago Baenre who slew him,” the young warrior replied. He knelt to the ground, for as Errtu’s body had melted away, the only things left behind were the demon’s sword and the head of Byok.
“The kill is mine to claim,” Tiago insisted, gently stroking Byok’s head. “The sword and whip are yours, mighty Yerrininae, and well-earned.”
A cheer from behind turned Tiago around, just in time to see the last glabrezu fall before Jearth’s warriors. To the side of that fight, the gathered folk of Bryn Shander stood in the broken gates, staring out, cheering, but tentatively.
Tiago understood their hesitance, surely, for not only had they seen the full extent of his drow force now, many more dark elves than they had expected, but a handful of horrid driders as well.
“Take your force and return to the camp,” he quietly instructed Yerrininae. “This battle is won.”
“There are more than a hundred potential enemies staring at you,” the drider quietly replied.
“Not enemies,” Tiago assured him. “Grateful peasants, more likely.” He saluted the drider and walked toward the gate, motioning for the others to remain to the side.
“It would appear as if Drizzt Do’Urden has made powerful enemies of the lower planes,” he said to the gathered folk. “You are fortunate that we were nearby.”
They all looked at him, and he noted the glances south, to the rest of his force, and many more to the north, where the five driders had gathered and started away.
Tiago thought to reassure them, but he held his tongue, letting it all sink in, trying to see where it would all lead.
It started as a small clapping of a single person, far in the back of the crowd, but grew quickly to riotous cheering and calls of “huzzah!” for the drow heroes who had saved Bryn Shander.
Tiago and his band kept their encampment south of the city, but Tiago and the Xorlarrin nobles remained in Bryn Shander after the fight. Their coin was no good there any longer, with free food and drink and lodging for as long as they desired.
In the short time before their arrival on the field of battle, Errtu and the glabrezu demons had killed scores and had caused great damage to the eastern section of the city, and only the charge of Tiago had saved them, the folk believed, and so it was true.
“Oh, the irony,” Jearth said one night in the tavern, lifting his glass in toast. “To think that Tiago Baenre would be hailed as a hero to humans on the surface world.”
Tiago, Ravel, and Saribel all drank to that delicious twist.
They remained in Bryn Shander, awaiting word of Drizzt’s return-and now Tiago did not doubt that the folk of Ten-Towns would aid him in his search. To further ensure their cooperation, the politic young Baenre began many rumors of his own, emphasizing that Drizzt Do’Urden had brought this demonic tragedy to Icewind Dale, and hinting that Drizzt had done so intentionally. As those whispers echoed and amplified through the streets of Bryn Shander, Tiago and his allies grew confident that the folk of Ten-Towns would not stand with Drizzt when he at last returned.
But the days became another month, and the season passed to spring, and then summer. Runners went to the barbarian tribes, and to the far reaches of Ten-Towns.
But not a word was heard of Drizzt Do’Urden and his five companions, and the last person to see them, the captain of the ferry, insisted that they had gone ashore exactly where he had placed Tiago’s group.
Before the roads closed once more with the coming winter, Tiago and his force traveled south, through the Spine of the World and back to Gauntlgrym. Ravel and his spellspinners had left behind a prepared area to support a magical portal, though, which could get them back to Ten-Towns quickly. They used that magic many times over the next months, and even over the next few years.
But not a trace of Drizzt Do’Urden was to be found, not a rumor from the barbarians nor a sighting among the dwarves of Kelvin’s Cairn, nor a visit to any of the towns of Icewind Dale.
The angry Tiago sent out tendrils across the northern reaches of Faerun, sent hired scouts to Mithral Hall and the Silver Marches, bribed thieves in Luskan, and demanded of Bregan D’aerthe that they bring him to Drizzt. He invoked the power of House Baenre, and his aunt, the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan, and even mighty Gromph, growing curious, joined in the hunt.
But none could find Drizzt, for he was lost, truly, even to Bregan D’aerthe, even to the eyes of Lady Lolth, even to Draygo Quick and the archwizards of Netheril, and to the great lament of Jarlaxle, who spent a king’s fortune in the hunt, going so far as to enlist a host of spies to roam the Shadowfell.
And the years became a decade, and the legend of Drizzt lived on, but the body, it seemed, did not.
Drizzt had been taken by the wind, lost among the legends, a name for another time.
Chapter 29
Moonlight.
A distinct beam reached down to the sleeping drow, penetrating the veil of his slumber, beckoning him back to consciousness. Lying flat on his back, Drizzt opened his eyes and focused on the pale orb high in the sky above him, peeking at him through a tangle of scraggly, leafless branches. He had slept for many hours, he realized, though it made little sense to him. For he had fallen asleep in the early evening, and judging by the moon, the night couldn’t be more than half over.
Gradually the memories came drifting to him: the sound of sweet music, the return of Artemis Entreri to the camp, the overwhelming desire to lie back down and go to sleep.
The starlight stolen by the heavy canopy above … but now that blanketing canopy was no more.
Drizzt felt the thick grass at his side. But when he propped himself up on his elbows, he realized this immediate area was the only remaining hint of the lush forest in which he had previously awakened. He blinked and shook his head, trying to make sense of the scene before him. His five companions lay around him, their rhythmic breathing, the snoring of Ambergris, showing them to be fast asleep. This one area, perhaps ten strides in diameter, seemed exactly as it had been in the “dream,” but everything else, everything beyond this tiny patch, was as it had been when first the six had come to this spot. No small, well-kept house. No pond. Exactly as it had been before his dream.
No, not exactly, for the snow lay thick on the ground immediately beyond the enchanted bedroom, but there had been no snow, nor any sign of an approaching storm, when they had come out from Easthaven.
Drizzt stood up and walked to the edge of the grassy anomaly. The moonlight was bright enough to give him a clear view as he inspected the snowpack, and from its formation, it seemed to him that the lower levels of snowpack, compacted and icy, had been in place for many tendays. He looked up at the clear sky, sorting the constellations.
Late winter?
But they had come out here from Easthaven just two days before, and in the early autumn.
Drizzt tried to sort it all out. Had it all been a dream? Only then did he realize that he still held an object in his hand, and he lifted it up before his eyes and confirmed the scrimshaw statuette of Catti-brie and Taulmaril.