Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(76)

Fwoop! The evil sound came repeatedly from the pile of bodies. Guenhwyvar’s reply came as more of a helpless wail than a growl..

Drizzt’s lavender eyes burned with rage. He took a single stride back toward the stairway before Belwar figured out a solution.

“Wait” the svirfneblin called, and he was truly relieved when Drizzt turned about to hear him. Belwar thrust his hip toward the drow and tore open his belt pouch. “Use this!”

Drizzt pulled out the onyx figurine and dropped it at his feet. “Be gone, Guenhwyvar!” he shouted. “Go back to the safety of your home!”

Drizzt and Belwar couldn’t even see the panther amid the throng of illithids, but they sensed the mind flayers’ sudden distress even before the telltale black mist appeared around the onyx figurine.

As a group, the illithids spun toward them and charged.

“Get the other door!” Belwar cried. Drizzt had grabbed the figurine and was already moving in that direction. The iron portals slammed shut and Drizzt worked to replace the locking bar. Several clasps on the outside of the door had been broken under the burrow-warden’s ferocious assault, and the bar was bent, but Drizzt managed to set it in place securely enough to at least slow the illithids.

“The other slaves are trapped,” Drizzt remarked.

“Goblins and gray dwarves mostly,” Belwar replied.

“And Clacker?”

Belwar threw his arms out helplessly.

“I pity them all,” groaned Drizzt, sincerely horrified at the prospect. “Nothing in all the world can torture more than the mental clutches of mind flayers.”

“Aye, dark elf,” whispered Belwar.

The illithids slammed into the doors, and Drizzt pushed back, further securing the lock.

“Where do we go?” Belwar asked behind him, and when Drizzt turned and surveyed the long and narrow cavern, he certainly understood the burrow-warden’s confusion. They spotted at least a dozen exits, but between them and every one rushed a crowd of terrified slaves or a group of illithids. Behind them came another heavy thud, and the doors creaked open several inches.

“Just go!” Drizzt shouted, pushing Belwar along. They charged down a wide stairway, then out across the broken floor, picking a route that would get them as far from the stone castle as possible.

“Ware danger on all sides!” Belwar cried. “Slave and flayer alike!”

“Let them beware!” Drizzt retorted, his scimitars leading the way. He slammed a goblin down with the hilt of one blade as it stumbled into his way, and a moment later, sliced the tentacles from the face of an illithid as it began to suck the brain from a recaptured duergar.

Then another former slave, a bigger one, jumped in front of Drizzt. The drow rushed it headlong, but this time he stayed his scimitars.

“Clacker!” Belwar yelled behind Drizzt.

“B-b-back of ... the... cavern,” the hook horror panted, its grumbled words barely decipherable. “The b.b.best exit.”

“Lead on,” Belwar replied excitedly, his hopes returning. Nothing would stand against the three of them united. When the burrow-warden started after his giant hook horror friend, however, he noticed that Drizzt wasn’t following. At first Belwar feared that a mind blast had caught the drow, but when he returned to Drizzt’s side, he realized otherwise.

Atop another of the many wide stairways that ran through the many-tiered cavern, a single slender figure moved through a group of slaves and illithids alike.

“By the gods,” Belwar muttered in disbelief, for the devastating movements of this single figure truly frightened the deep gnome.

The precise cuts and deft twists of the twin swords were not at all frightening to Drizzt Do’Urden. Indeed, to the young dark elf, they rang with a familiarity that brought an old ache to his heart. He looked at Belwar blankly and spoke the name of the single warrior who could fit those maneuvers, the only name that could accompany such magnificent swordplay.

“Zaknafein.”





CHAPTER 20

FATHER, MY FATHER


How many lies had Matron Malice told him? What truth could Drizzt ever find in the web of deceptions that marked drow society? His father had not been sacrificed to the Spider Queen! Zaknafein was here, fighting before him, wielding his swords as finely as Drizzt had ever seen.

“What is it?” Belwar demanded.

“The drow warrior,” Drizzt was barely able to whisper.

“From your city, dark elf?’” Belwar asked. “Sent after you?”

“From Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt replied. Belwar waited for more information, but Drizzt was too enthralled by Zak’s appearance to go into much detail.

“We must go,” the burrow-warden said at length.

“Quickly,” agreed Clacker, returning to his friends. The hook horror’s voice sounded more controlled now, as though the mere appearance of Clacker’s friends had aided his pech side in its continuing internal struggle. “The mind flayers are organizing defenses. Many slaves are down.”

Drizzt spun out of the reach of Belwar’s pick-hand. “No,’ he said firmly. “I’ll not leave him!”

“Magga cammara, dark elf!” Belwar shouted at him. “Who is it?”

“Zaknafein Do’Urden,” Drizzt yelled back, more than matching the burrow-warden’s rising ire. Drizzt’s volume dropped considerably as he finished the thought, though, and he nearly choked on the words, “My father.’