Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(55)

But the human had learned to survive in the Underdark, and his defenses were in place long before Drizzt and Belwar ever appeared around the rocky outcropping. He waved his hands and uttered a single word that the companions could not understand. A ring on his finger glowed brightly and loosed a tiny ball of fire up into the air between him and the intruders.

“Velcome to my home, then!” the wizard yelled triumphantly. “Play with this!” He snapped his fingers and vanished.

Drizzt and Belwar could feel the explosive energy gathering around the glowing orb.

“Run!” the burrow-warden cried, and he turned to flee. In Blingdenstone, most of the magic was illusionary, designed for defense. But in Menzoberranzan, where Drizzt had learned of magic, the spells were undeniably offensive. Drizzt knew the wizard’s attack, and he knew that in these narrow and low corridors, flight would not be an option.

“No!” he cried, and he grabbed the back of Belwar’s leather jack and pulled the deep gnome along, straight toward the glowing orb. Belwar knew to trust in Drizzt, and he turned and ran willingly beside his friend. The burrow-warden understood the drow’s plan as soon as his eyes managed to tear away from the spectacle of the orb. Drizzt was making for the stream.

The friends dived headlong into the water, bouncing and scraping on the stones, just as the fireball exploded.

A moment later, they rose up from the steaming water, wisps of smoke rising from the back of their clothing, which had not been submerged. They coughed and sputtered, for the flames had temporarily stolen the air from the chamber, and the residual heat from the glowing stones nearly overwhelmed them.

“Humans,” Belwar muttered grimly. He pulled himself from the water and shook vigorously. Drizzt came out beside him and couldn’t hide his laughter. The deep gnome, though, found no levity at all in the situation. “The wizard,” he pointedly reminded Drizzt. Drizzt dropped into a crouch and glanced nervously all around.

They set off at once.

“Home!” Belwar proclaimed a couple of days later. The two friends looked down from a narrow ledge at a wide and high cavern that housed an underground lake. Behind them was a three-chambered cave with only a single tiny entrance, easily defensible.

Drizzt climbed the ten or so feet to stand by his friend on the top-most ledge. “Possibly,” he tentatively agreed, “though we left the wizard only a few days’ walk from here.”

“Forget the human,” Belwar snarled, glancing over at the burn mark on his precious jack.

“And I am not so fond of having so large a pool only a few feet from our door,” Drizzt continued.

“With fish it is filled” the burrow-warden argued. “ Andwith mosses and plants that will keep our bellies full, and water that seems clean enough!”

“But such an oasis will attract visitors,” reasoned Drizzt. “We would find little rest, I fear.”

Belwar looked down the sheer wall to the floor of the large cavern. “Never a problem,” he said with a snicker. “The bigger ones cannot get up here, and the smaller ones... well, I have seen the cut of your blades, and you have seen the strength of my hands. About the smaller ones I shall not worry!”

Drizzt liked the svirfneblin’s confidence, and he had to agree that they had found no other place suitable for use as a dwelling. Water, hard to find and, more often than not, undrinkable, was a precious commodity in the dry Underdark. With the lake and the growth about it, Drizzt and Belwar would never have to travel far to find a meal.

Drizzt was about to agree, but then a movement down by the water caught his and Belwar’s attention.

“And crabs!” spouted the svirfneblin, obviously not having the same reaction to the sight as the drow. “Magga cammara, dark elf! Crabs! As fme a meal as ever you will find!”

Indeed it was a crab that had slipped out of the lake, a gigantic, twelve-foot monster with pincers that could snap a human-or an elf or a gnome-fully in half. Drizzt looked at Belwar incredulously. “A meal?” he asked.

Belwar’s smile rolled right up around his crinkled nose as he banged his hammer and pick hands together.

They ate crab meat that night, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and Drizzt soon was quite willing to agree that the three-chambered cave by the underground lake made a fme home.

The spirit-wraith paused to consider the red-glowing field. In life, Zaknafein Do’Urden would have avoided such a patch, respecting the inherent dangers of odd-glowing rooms and luminous mosses. But to the spirit-wraith the trail was clear; Drizzt had come this way.

The spirit-wraith waded in, ignoring the noxious puffs of deadly spores that shot up at him with every step, choking spores that filled the lungs of unfortunate creatures.

But Zaknafein did not draw breath.

Then came the rumbling as the grubber rushed to protect its domain. Zaknafein fell into a defensive crouch, the instincts of the being he once had been sensing the danger. The grubber rolled into the glowing moss patch but noticed no intruder to chase away. It moved in anyway, thinking that a meal of baruchies might not be such a bad thing.

When the grubber reached the center of the chamber, the spirit-wraith let his levitation spell dissipate. Zaknafein landed on the monster’s back, locking his legs fast. The grubber thrashed and thundered about the room, but Zaknafein’s balance did not waver. The grubber’s hide was thick and tough, able to repel all but the finest of weapons, which Zaknafein possessed.