Drizzt glanced sidelong at Donnia, watching her as she observed the great panther begin stalking in a circle, round and round until Guenhwyvar's lines blurred and she became a drifting gray mist, initially in the shape of a cat, but then drifting apart to nothingness.
"Guenhwyvar's time here is limited," Drizzt explained. "She tires easily and must return to her Astral home to rejuvenate."
"A marvelous companion," Donnia remarked.
"One of three," Drizzt replied. "Or five, if you count the pegasi, and I assure you that they should be counted."
"You are allied with the surface elves then?" Donnia asked, and before Drizzt could answer, she added, "That is good—they are fine companions for one of our kind who has forsaken the Spider Queen."
"Mighty companions," Drizzt agreed. "The female is a high priestess of an elf god, Corellon Larethian. She will wish to speak with you, no doubt, to determine your veracity."
He noted the slight hesitation in Donnia's step as she moved along right behind him.
"She has spells she will cast upon you," Drizzt pressed. "But fear not, for they are merely to detect if you are lying. Once she has seen the truth of Donnia Soldou…"
He ended his words with a sudden spin left to right, drawing Icingdeath from the sheath on his right hip as he turned. As he expected, the panicked Donnia was coming at him, dagger drawn from her boot and arm extended.
Drizzt's leading right hand slapped down over Donnia's wrist and turned her stabbing blade up high and wide, and in rushed the scimitar to poke hard against the female's ribs, drawing a long gash. Donnia spun and scrambled away, but not before she got hit again across the extended arm, hard enough so that she let go of her blade. Clutching her right arm and holding it in tight against the wound to her right side, Donnia stumbled.
Drizzt ran past her.
"All of it a lie—as if I should have ever expected anything else from a drow!" he cried, and he rushed to the side as Donnia veered.
"I will have the truth now, or I will have your head!" Drizzt demanded. "Why are you here? And how many of our kin are in your band?"
"Hundreds!" Donnia yelled at him, and still she scrambled, looking for some escape. "Thousands, Drizzt Do'Urden! And all of them with the edict to bring your head to the Spider Queen!"
Drizzt rushed to block the way before her, and Donnia summoned a globe of darkness around him.
She charged right into it, guessing correctly that he would go out one side or the other. She got past and rushed out of the darkness, coming to the lip of a long drop. Without hesitation, the drow leaped out, again bringing forth the innate magic of her station and race. Before she had plummeted twenty feet, she was drifting down slowly.
"You so disappoint me," she heard Drizzt say behind and above her, and she sensed sincerity in his voice, as if perhaps he truly wanted to believe her tale.
And indeed, he had wanted to believe her. How badly Drizzt wanted to find a drow companion! Another of like mind to him to share his adventures, to truly understand the solitude that was ever in his heart.
Donnia had barely gotten the smile onto her face when she heard the click of a hand crossbow from behind and above, and she felt the sudden sting atop her shoulder. She held her place in midair, counteracting the pull of the ground completely with the levitation. Then she stared at the dart and felt the poison beginning to seep into her shoulder.
She was motionless, helpless, hanging there.
Drizzt looked down at her and sighed deeply. He dropped the hand crossbow—Donnia's own hand crossbow that he had scooped up from the pile as they had set out—and watched it drop past her, down, down, the two hundred feet to shatter on the stones below.
Drizzt fell into a crouch and put his head in his hand. He didn't look away, though, determined to bear witness.
The levitation soon expired and the paralyzed Donnia dropped. She couldn't even scream out as she fell, for her vocal chords could not function against the potent poison.
Drizzt looked away at the last second, not wanting to watch her hit. But then he looked back, to see the drow female splayed across the stones, warm blood pooling around her.
The ranger sighed again, though he wasn't really surprised it had ended like that. Still, the one emotion that dominated Drizzt Do'Urden at that moment was anger, just anger, at the futility of it all.
He gathered himself up a few moments later, reminding himself that Tarathiel and Innovindil were likely still fairly helpless in their cave, and he started back at a fast run. He found them safe and sound, and even beginning to move a bit once more.
Innovindil was reaching for her clothing as Drizzt entered, so he promptly retrieved the items and gave them over, then moved back near the entrance and began cleaning up the mess that was Ad'non.
"Well met again, Drizzt Do'Urden," Tarathiel said to him. "And a most fortunate meeting it is, for us at least."
"You have dealt with the remaining drow?" Innovindil asked.
"She is dead," Drizzt confirmed, his tone somber. "She fell from a cliff face."
"Did it pain you to kill them?" Innovindil asked.
Drizzt's head snapped around at her, his eyes narrow.
"Did it?" Innovindil asked again, not backing away at all.
Drizzt's visage softened.
"It always does," he admitted.
"Then your soul is intact," Tarathiel remarked. "Be afraid when the killing no longer affects you."
How profound that simple remark seemed to Drizzt at that moment, to the creature who seemed to be caught somewhere between his true self and the Hunter. Certainly he felt more soulless at those times when he was the Hunter. The deaths didn't bother him in that mode. He had felt nothing but the satisfaction of victory when he had beheaded Ad'non, but the death of Donnia had stung more than a little. There had to be some middle ground, Drizzt knew, a place where he could fight as the Hunter and yet hold on to his soul. He thought back across the years and believed that he had found that place before. He could only hope that he would find it again.
Drizzt rummaged through Ad'non's pockets, searching for some clue as to who the dark elf might be and why he was there. He found little, other than a few coins that he did not recognize. One other thing did catch his eye though: the fine light gray silk shirt that Ad'non wore under his cloak. That shirt had stopped Drizzt's scimitars; he could see the indentation marks where his fine blades had struck hard. Furthermore, though the area all around the corpse was deep in blood, none of it seemed to touch Ad'non's shirt.
"Strong magic," Innovindil remarked, and when Drizzt looked to her, she motioned for him to take the shirt as his own. "To the victor. . " she recited.
Drizzt began removing the shirt. His own chain mail, forged by Bruenor, was in sore need of repair, with many broken links, and some of them rubbing him uncomfortably.
"We are most grateful," Tarathiel remarked. "You understand that, of course?"
"I could not let them harm you, as I believe you would have come to my aid—indeed, as you have come to my aid," Drizzt replied.
"We are not your enemies," Tarathiel said, and the tone of his voice made Drizzt pause and consider him.
"I have never desired the enmity of any surface elf I have ever known," Drizzt replied, both his tone and his words leading.
He didn't miss the movement as Innovindil and Tarathiel exchanged concerned glances.
"We must tell you that you have made an enemy of one," Innovindil admitted. "Through no fault of your own."
"You remember Ellifain," Tarathiel added.
"Keenly," Drizzt assured him, and he sighed and lowered his gaze. "Though when I last met her, she was called Le'lorinel and was masquerading as a male."