Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(84)

The giant’s strength slid Drizzt back several feet, but the parry softened the blow enough for Belwar to fall by. Still, the burrow-warden crashed heavily into the floor and spent a long moment too dazed to react.

“Clacker!” Drizzt cried again, as a giant foot came up with the obvious intent of squashing Belwar flat. Needing all his speed and agility, Drizzt dived around to the back of the hook horror, dropped to the floor, and went for Clacker’s knees, as he had in their first encounter. Trying to stomp on the prone svirfneblin, Clacker was already a bit off balance, and Drizzt easily tripped him to the stone. In the blink of an eye, the drow warrior sprang atop the monster’s chest and slipped a scimitar tip between the armored folds of Clacker’s neck.

Drizzt dodged a clumsy swing as Clacker continued to struggle. The drow hated what he had to do, but then the hook horror calmed suddenly and looked up at him with sincere understanding.

“D-d-do ... it,” came a garbled demand. Drizzt, horrified, glanced over to Belwar for support. Back on his feet, the burrow-warden just looked away.

“Clacker?” Drizzt asked the hook horror.” Are you Clacker once again?”

The monster hesitated, then the beaked head nodded slightly.

Drizzt sprang away and looked at the carnage in the chamber. “Let us leave,” he said.

Clacker remained prone a moment longer, considering the grim implications of his reprieve. With the battle’s conclusion, the hook horror side backed out of its full control of Clacker’s consciousness. Those savage instincts lurked, Clacker knew, not far from the surface, waiting for another opportunity to find a firm hold. How many times would the faltering pech side be able to fight those instincts?

Clacker slammed the stone, a mighty blow that sent cracks running through the chamber’s floor. With great effort, the weary giant climbed to his feet. In his embarrassment, Clacker didn’t look at his companions, but just stormed away down the tunnel, each banging footstep falling like a hammer on a nail in Drizzt Do’Urden’s heart.

“Perhaps you should have finished it, dark elf,” Belwar suggested, moving beside his drow friend.

“He saved my life in the illithid cavern,” Drizzt retorted sharply. “And has been a loyal friend.’

“He tried to kill me, and you,” the deep gnome said grimly. “Magga cammara!’

“I am his friend!” Drizzt growled, grabbing the svirfneblin’s shoulder. “You ask me to kill him?”

“I ask you to act as his friend,” retorted Belwar, and he pulled free of the grasp and started away down the tunnel after Clacker.

Drizzt grabbed the burrow-warden’s shoulder again and roughly spun him around.

“It will only get worse, dark elf,” Belwar said calmly into Drizzt’s grimace. “A firmer hold does the wizard’s spell gain with every passing day. Clacker will try to kill us again, I fear, and if he succeeds, the realization of the act will destroy him more fully than your blades ever could!”

“I cannot kill him,” Drizzt said, and he was no longer angry. “Nor can you.”

“Then we must leave him,” the deep gnome replied. “We must let Clacker go free in the Underdark, to live his life as a hook horror. That surely is what he will become, body and spirit.”

“No,” said Drizzt. “We must not leave him. We are his only chance. We must help him.”

“The wizard is dead,” Belwar reminded him, and the deep gnome turned away and started again after Clacker.

“There are other wizards,” Drizzt replied under his breath, this time making no move to impede the burrow-warden. The drow’s eyes narrowed and he snapped his scimitars back into their sheaths. Drizzt knew what he must do, what price his friendship with Clacker demanded, but he found the thought too disturbing to accept.

There were indeed other wizards in the Underdark, but chance meetings were far from common, and wizards capable of dispelling Clacker’s polymorphed state would be fewer still. Drizzt knew where such wizards could be found, though.

The thought of returning to his homeland haunted Drizzt with every step he and his companions took that day. Having viewed the consequences of his decision to leave Menzoberranzan, Drizzt never wanted to see the place again, never wanted to look upon the dark world that had so damned him.

But if he chose now not to return, Drizzt knew that he would soon witness a more wicked sight than Menzoberranzan. He would watch Clacker, a friend who had saved him from certain death, degenerate fully into a hook horror. Belwar had suggested abandoning Clacker, and that course seemed preferable to the battle that Drizzt and the deep gnome surely must fight if they were near Clacker when the degeneration became complete.

Even if Clacker were far removed, though, Drizzt knew that he would witness the degeneration. His thoughts would stay on Clacker, the friend he had abandoned, for the rest of his days, just one more pain for the tormented drow.

In all the world, Drizzt could think of nothing he desired less than viewing the sights of Menzoberranzan or conversing with his former people. Given the choice, he would prefer death over returning to the drow city, but the choice was not so simple. It hinged on more than Drizzt’s personal desires. He had founded his life on principles, and those principles now demanded loyalty. They demanded that he put Clacker’s needs above his own desires, because Clacker had befriended him and because the concept of true friendship far outweighed personal desires.