Up above, Ad'non went over in a similar manner and quick-stepped his way to the wall opposite the entrance from Donnia.
Warm ashes within, Donnia flashed, a sure sign that the place was being used as a campsite.
Ad'non fell low and peered around, taking his time with the scan.
Empty, he silently told his companion. But not deserted.
Neither had to signal the other that they should set an ambush.
The drow elves moved around outside the cave, looking for some promis-ing vantage points for an ambush. They didn't remain too close to the entrance, though, nor did they go in, showing proper respect for their dangerous adver-saries. Soon after, Donnia stumbled upon something even more promising: a second cave.
This one is deeper, she signaled.
Ad'non came up to the lip of the small tunnel. He studied the descent within and the general angle of the corridor, then measured both against the location of the cave the surface elves were obviously using as a base. He motioned Donnia back, then fell to his belly and turned his head away as he gingerly slid his hand into the cave, delicate and practiced fingers working around the rim in search of any cunning traps. Gradually, Ad'non's arm went in deeper, feeling every inch.
With a glance at Donnia, the drow male slithered into the small hole, disappearing from view.
Donnia moved to the lip and glanced in just in time to see Ad'non's feet slip around the first bend in the corridor. With a look all around, she gently put one ear to the stone. The tapping of a predetermined code sent her into motion, falling flat and slipping in. The going was tight and tighter still when she worked around that first bend, and she came to a hole in the floor that could be negotiated only by going in head first, and blindly. Few rational creatures would have continued through such an uncomfortable obstacle, but to the dark elves, who had spent so many decades working through countless similar corridors in the honeycombed Underdark, it was not so daunting.
The corridor below the hole was a bit wider, though the ceiling was too low for Donnia to lift her head as she crawled along. It widened even more and opened into a higher chamber, and there she found her companion, sitting on a stone.
We should go down lower, Ad'non reasoned, and he motioned to the several choices offered to them: a pair of corridors winding out of the chamber, a wider area up a steep incline that seemed to extend over a wall of piled stones, and a broken-walled, rocky hole winding down deeper.
Donnia knew better than to argue with Ad'non concerning underground direction sense, for the scout had always shown a remarkable ability to navigate such tunnels. He was possessed of a keen instinct for that type of searching, as if he could innately sense the structure of any cave complex, as if he could somehow step back from the smaller areas visible to them at any given time and view the whole of the region. Perhaps it was the flow of the air or gradations of heat or light, but however he did it, Ad'non always seemed to follow the best course along a maze of tunnels.
And sure enough, after squeezing down the rocky shaft, crawling under a low overhang of rock and following yet another winding tunnel, the dark elves came into a small chamber. A slight breeze blew through the far wall. Not much of a wind, but one that sounded clearly to the keen ears of the drow.
Dead end? Donnia asked.
Ad'non signed her to be patient, then he moved to that far wall and began feeling along the stone. He looked back and grinned wickedly, and when Donnia rushed up to join him, she soon understood.
For they had come into a chamber adjacent to the cave the surface elves were using as their camp, and while there was no access between the chambers, the dark elves were able to work enough of the stone to give them a view of the other room.
They carefully replaced the stones and went back out into the night.
* * *
Drizzt went down to one knee and stared out across the early-morning landscape. Mist rose from the many mountain streams, dulling the sharp lines of ridges and outcroppings and adding a surreal quality to the morning light, dispersing it in a haze of orange and yellow. That mist dulled the sounds, too. The cry of birds, the rumble of loose stones, the babble of running water.
The scream of orcs.
Drizzt followed those screams out across a valley to another ridge across the way, and he made out the winged form of one pegasus, lifting into the air, then diving suddenly, and again, while its rider let fly a line of arrows from a longbow.
That would be Tarathiel, Drizzt supposed, for he was usually the one chasing the orcs into Innovindil's ambush.
Drizzt shook his head and gave a grin at their efficiency, for the pair had been out hunting before the last sunset and were out again at the first signs of dawn. He doubted that they had even returned to their cave during the night. He watched the chase a bit longer, then padded off softly for a secluded glade that he knew of nearby. Once there, he found a quiet place off to the side where he could watch the grassy area unnoticed, and he waited.
Sure enough, barely half an hour later, a pair of pegasi trotted onto the meadow, the two elves walking beside them and talking easily. The mounts needed to rest and to eat and needed to be wiped down as well, for their white coats glistened with sweat.
Drizzt had figured as much, and thus, he had expected the elf pair. Once again, the thought of going to them nagged at him. Was it not his responsibility to tell them of Ellifain and the tragedy in the west?
And yet, as the minutes passed, with Tarathiel and Innovindil untacking the Pegasi, the drow did not move.
He watched their movements as they gently watered down the marvelous steeds with water from a nearby brook. He watched Tarathiel bring a bucket up before each pegasus in turn, gently stroking the sides of their heads as they bent low to drink. He watched Innovindil bring forth some type of root. She put it in her mouth and stood before her mount teasingly, and the pegasus reached out and took the root from her in what could only be described as a kiss. The stallion reared then, but not threateningly, and Innovindil merely laughed and did not move as the great equine creature waved its front hooves in the air before her.
Drizzt's hand went to his belt pouch and the onyx figurine at the sight of the intimate interaction, for the way Tarathiel and Innovindil acted with their pegasi seemed a deeper level than master and creature, seemed a friendship more than anything else. Drizzt above all others understood such a relationship.
Again the drow felt the urge to go to them, to talk to them and to tell them the truth. He paused and looked down, then closed his eyes and relived that fateful battle with the disturbed Ellifain. For many minutes, he sat there quietly, remembering the encounter and the one previous with Ellifain, in the Moonwood and with Tarathiel nearby. He understood the pain Tarathiel would feel upon hearing of Ellifain's fate, for he had seen the compassion Tarathiel had shown to the disturbed elf female.
He didn't want to bring that pain to those two.
But they had a right to know, and he a responsibility to tell them.
Yes, he had to tell them.
But when he looked up, the elves were already gone. Drizzt moved from his hiding place, a low crook on a tree nestled among several others. He went to the edge of the meadow, scanning, and he saw the pegasi lift into the air from over the other end.
Drizzt knew that they weren't going hunting. The mounts were too weary and so were the elves, likely. He watched their progress and figured their direction.