I did not abandon my conscience, but it, I fear, has deceived me.
I did everything right.
Yet Ellifain is dead, and my long-ago rescue of her is a mockery.
I did everything right.
And I watched Bruenor fall, and I expect that those others I loved, that everything I loved, fell with him.
Is there a divine entity out there somewhere, laughing at my foolishness?
Is there even a divine entity out there, anywhere?
Or was it all a lie, and worse, a self-deception?
Often have I considered community, and the betterment of the individual within the context of the betterment of the whole. This was the guiding principle of my existence, the realization that forced me from Menzoberranzan. And now, in this time of pain, I have come to understand— or perhaps it is just that now I have forced myself to admit—that my belief was also something much more personal. How ironic that in my declaration of community, I was in effect and in fact feeding my own desperate need to belong to something larger than myself.
In privately declaring and reinforcing the righteousness of my beliefs, I was doing no differently from those who flock before the preacher's pulpit. I was seeking comfort and guidance, only I was looking for the needed answers within, whereas so many others seek them without.
By that understanding, I did everything right. And yet, I cannot dismiss the growing realization, the growing trepidation, the growing terror, that I, ultimately, was wrong.
For what is the point if Ellifain is dead, and if she existed in such turmoil through all the short years of her life? For what is the point if I and my friends followed our hearts and trusted in our swords, only for me to watch them die beneath the rubble of a collapsing tower?
If I have been right all along, then where is justice, and where is the reciprocation of a grateful god?
Even in asking that question, I see the hubris that has so infected me. Even in asking that question, I see the machinations of my soul laid bare. I cannot help but ask, am I any different than my kin? In technique, surely, but in effect? For in declaring community and dedication, did I not truly seek exactly the same things as the priestesses I left behind in Men-zoberranzan? Did I, like they, not seek eternal life and higher standing among my peers?
As the foundation of Withegroo's tower swayed and toppled, so too have the illusions that have guided my steps.
I was trained to be a warrior. Were it not for my skill with my scimitars, I expect I would be a smaller player in the world around me, less respected and less accepted. That training and talent are all that I have left now; it is the foundation upon which I intend to build this new chapter in the curious and winding road that is the life of Drizzt Do Urden. It is the extension of my rage that I will turn loose upon the wretched creatures that have so shattered all that I held dear. It is the expression of what I have lost: Ellifain, Bruenor, Wulfgar, Regis, Catti-brie, and, in effect, Drizzt Do'Urden.
These scimitars, Icingdeath and Twinkle by name, become my definition of myself now, and Guenhwyvar again is my only companion. I trust in both, and in nothing else.
— Drizzt Do'Urden
CHAPTER 1 ANGER'S REMINDER
Drizzt didn't like to think of it as a shrine. Propped on a forked stick, the one-horned helmet of Bruenor Battlehammer dominated the small hollow that the dark elf had taken as his home. The helm was set right before the cliff face that served as the hollow's rear wall, in the only place within the natural shelter that got any sunlight at all.
Drizzt wanted it that way. He wanted to see the helmet. He wanted never to forget. And it wasn't just Bruenor he was determined to remember, and not just his other friends.
Most of all, Drizzt wanted to remember who had done that horrible thing to him and to his world.
He had to fall to his belly to crawl between the two fallen boulders and into the hollow, and even then the going was slow and tight. Drizzt didn't care; he actually preferred it that way. The total lack of comforts, the almost animalistic nature of his existence, was good for him, was cathartic, and even more than that, was yet another reminder to him of what he had to become, of whom he had to be if he wanted to survive. No more was he Drizzt Do'Urden of Icewind Dale, friend to Bruenor and Catti-brie, Wulfgar and Regis. No more was he Drizzt Do'Urden, the ranger trained by Montolio deBrouchee in the ways of nature and the spirit of Mielikki. He was once again that lone drow who had wandered out of Menzoberranzan. He was once again that refugee from the city of dark elves, who had forsaken the ways of the priestesses who had so wronged him and who had murdered his father.
He was the Hunter, the instinctual creature who had defeated the fell ways of the Underdark, and who would repay the orc hordes for the death of his dearest friends.
He was the Hunter, who sealed his mind against all but survival, who put aside the emotional pain of the loss of Ellifain.
Drizzt knelt before the sacred totem one afternoon, watching the splay of sunlight on the tilted helmet. Bruenor had lost one of the horns on it years and years past, long before Drizzt had come into his life. The dwarf had never replaced the horn, he had told Drizzt, because it was a reminder to him always to keep his head low.
Delicate fingers moved up and felt the rough edge of that broken horn. Drizzt could still catch the smell of Bruenor on the leather band of the helm, as if the dwarf was squatting in the dark hollow beside him. As if they had just returned from another brutal battle, breathing heavy, laughing hard, and lathered in sweat.
The drow closed his eyes and saw again that last desperate image of Bruenor. He saw Withegroo's white tower, flames leaping up its side, a lone dwarf rushing around on top, calling orders to the bitter end. He saw the tower lean and tumble, and watched the dwarf disappear into the crumbling blocks.
He closed his eyes all the tighter to hold back the tears. He had to defeat them, had to push them far, far away. The warrior he had become had no place for such emotions. Drizzt opened his eyes and looked again at the helmet, drawing strength in his anger. He followed the line of a sunbeam to the recess behind the staked headgear, to see his own discarded boots.
Like the weak and debilitating emotion of grief, he didn't need them anymore.
Drizzt fell to his belly and slithered out through the small opening between the boulders, moving into the late afternoon sunlight. He jumped to his feet almost immediately after sliding clear and put his nose up to the wind. He glanced all around, his keen eyes searching every shadow and every play of the sunlight, his bare feet feeling the cool ground beneath him. With a cursory glance all around, the Hunter sprinted off for higher ground.
He came out on the side of a mountain just as the sun disappeared behind the western horizon, and there he waited, scouting the region as the shadows lengthened and twilight fell.
Finally, the light of a campfire glittered in the distance.
Drizzt's hand went instinctively to the onyx figurine in his belt pouch. He didn't take it forth and summon Guenhwyvar, though. Not that night.
His vision grew even more acute as the night deepened around him, and Drizzt ran off, silent as the shadows, elusive as a feather on a windy autumn day. He wasn't constricted by the mountain trails, for he was too nimble to be slowed by boulder tumbles and broken ground. He wove through trees easily, and so stealthily that many of the forest animals, even wary deer, never heard or noted his approach, never knew he had passed unless a shift in the wind brought his scent to them.