Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(34)
Drizzt looked at him incredulously. “You do not understand,” Drizzt began, wondering how he could possibly make the burrow-warden comprehend the depth of what had come over him.
“Many years you have lived out in the Underdark,” Belwar said, “surviving where others could not.”
“But have I survived?” Drizzt wondered aloud.
Belwar’s hammer-hand patted the drow’s shoulder gently, and the burrow-warden sat down on the table beside him. There they remained throughout the night. Drizzt said no more, and Belwar didn’t press him. The burrow-warden knew his role that night: a silent support.
Neither knew how many hours had passed when Seldig’s voice came in from beyond the door. “Come, Drizzt Do’Urden,” the young deep gnome called. “Come and tell us more tales of the Underdark.”
Drizzt looked at Belwar curiously, wondering if the request was part of some devious trick or ironic joke.
Belwar’s smile dispelled that notion. “Magga cammara, dark elf,” the deep gnome chuckled. “They’ll not let you hide.”
“Send them away,” Drizzt insisted.
“So willing are you to surrender?” Belwar retorted, a distinct edge to his normally round-toned voice. “You who have survived the trials of the wilds?”
“Too dangerous,” Drizzt explained desperately, searching for the words. “I cannot control... cannot be rid of ...”
“Go with them, dark elf” Belwar said. “They will be more cautious this time.”
“This... beast... follows me,” Drizzt tried to explain.
“Perhaps for a while,” the burrow-warden replied casually. “Magga cammara, Drizzt Do’Urden! Five weeks is not such a long time, not measured against the trials you have endured over the last ten years. Your freedom will be gained from this... beast,” Drizzt’s lavender eyes found only sincerity in Belwar Dissengulp’s dark gray orbs.
“But only if you seek it,” the burrow-warden finished.
“Come out, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Seldig called again from beyond the stone door.
This time, and every time in the days to come, Drizzt, and only Drizzt, answered the call.
The myconid king watched the dark elf prowl across the cavern’s moss-covered lower level. It was not the same drow that had left, the fungoid knew, but Drizzt, an ally, had been the king’s only previous contact with the dark elves. Oblivious to its peril, the eleven-foot giant crept down to intercept the stranger.
The spirit-wraith of Zaknafein did not even attempt to flee or hide as the animated mushroom-man closed in. Zaknafein’s swords were comfortably set in his hands. The myconid king puffed a cloud of spores, seeking a telepathic conversation with the newcomer.
But undead monsters existed on two distinct planes, and their minds were impervious to such attempts. Zaknafein’s material body faced the myconid, but the spirit-wraith’s mind was far distant, linked to his corporeal form by Matron Malice’s will. The spirit-wraith closed over the last few feet to his adversary.
The myconid puffed a second cloud, this one of spores designed to pacify an opponent, and this cloud was equally futile. The spirit-wraith came on steadily, and the giant raised its powerful arms to strike it down.
Zaknafein blocked the swings with quick cuts of his razor-edged swords, severing the myconid’s hands. Too fast to follow, the spirit-wraith’s weapons slashed at the king’s mushroomlike torso, and dug deep wounds that drove the fungoid backward and to the ground.
From the top level, dozens of the older and stronger myconids lumbered down to rescue their injured king. The spirit-wraith saw their approach but did not know fear. Zaknafein finished his business with the giant, then turned calmly to meet the assault.
Fungus-men came on, blasting their various spores. Zaknafein ignored the clouds, none of which could possibly affect him, and concentrated fully on the clubbing arms. Myconids came charging in all around him.
And they died all around him.
They had tended their grove for centuries untold, living in peace and going about their own way. But when the spirit-wraith returned from the crawl-tunnel that led to the now-abandoned small cave that once had served as Drizzt’s home, Zak’s fury would tolerate no semblance of peace. Zaknafein rushed up the wall to the mushroom grove, hacking at everything in his path.
Giant mushrooms tumbled like cut trees. Below, the small rothe herd, nervous by nature, broke into a frenzied stampede and rushed out into the tunnels of the open Underdark. The few remaining fungus-men, having witnessed the power of this dark elf, scrambled to get out of his thrashing way. But myconids were not fast-moving creatures, and Zaknafein relentlessly chased them down.
Their reign in the moss-covered cave, and the mushroom grove they had tended for so very long, came to a sudden and final end.
CHAPTER 9
WHISPERS IN THE TUNNELS
The svirfneblin patrol inched its way around the bends of the broken and twisting tunnel, war hammers and pickaxes held at the ready. The deep gnomes were not far from Blingdenstone-less than a day out-but they had gone into their practiced battle formations usually reserved for the deep Underdark.
The tunnel reeked of death.
The lead deep gnome, knowing that the carnage lay just beyond, gingerly peeked over a boulder. Goblins! his senses cried out to his companions, a clear voice in the racial empathy of the svirfnebli. When the dangers of the Underdark closed in on the deep gnomes, they rarely spoke aloud, reverting to a communal empathic bond that could convey basic thoughts.