Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(59)

But no more is that the case, I find, and it pleases me. Since that day of cataclysm, a decade ago, when the volcano roared forth and painted a line of devastation from the mountain all the way to the sea, burying Neverwinter in its devastating run, the tone of the region has changed. It is almost as if that one event had sent forth a call for conflict, a clarion call for sinister beings.

In a sense, it did just that. The loss of Neverwinter in essence severed the North from the more civilized regions along the Sword Coast, where Waterdeep has now become the vanguard against the wilderness. Traders no longer travel through the region, except by sea, and the lure of Neverwinter’s former treasures has pulled adventurers—often unsavory, often unprincipled—in great numbers to the devastated city.

Some are trying to rebuild, desperate to restore the busy port and the order it once imposed upon these inhospitable lands. But they battle as much as they build. They carry a carpenter’s hammer in one hand, a warhammer in the other.

Enemies abound: Shadovar, those strange cultists sworn to a devil god, opportunistic highwaymen, goblinkin, giants, and monsters alive and undead. And other things, darker things from deeper holes.

In the years since the cataclysm, the northern Sword Coast has grown darker by far.

And it pleases me.

When I am in battle, I am free. When my blades cut low a scion of evil, only then do I feel as if there is purpose to my life. Many times have I wondered if this rage within is just a reflection of a heritage I have never truly shaken. The focus of battle, the intensity of the fight, the satisfaction of victory … are they all merely an admission that I am, after all, drow?

And if that is the truth, then what did I actually know about my homeland and my people, and what did I merely paste onto a caricature I had created of a society whose roots lay in passion and lust I had not yet begun to understand or experience?

Was there, I wonder—and I fear—some deeper wisdom to the Matron Mothers of Menzoberranzan, some understanding of drow joy and need that perpetuated the state of conflict in the drow city?

It seems a ridiculous thought, and yet only through battle have I endured the pain. Only through battle have I found again a sense of accomplishment, of forward movement, of bettering community.

This truth surprises me, angers me, and paradoxically, even as it offers me hope to continue, it hints at some notion that perhaps I should not, that this existence is only a futile thing, after all, a mirage, a self-delusion.

Like Bruenor’s quest.

I doubt he’ll find Gauntlgrym, I doubt it exists and I doubt that he believes he’ll find it, either, or that he ever believed he would find it. And yet every day he pores over his collection of maps and clues, and leaves no hole unexplored. It is his purpose. The search gives meaning to the life of Bruenor Battlehammer. Indeed, it seems the nature of the dwarf, and of the dwarves in general, who are always talking of things gone by and reclaiming the glory that once was.

What is the nature of the drow, then?

Even before I lost her, my love Catti-brie, and my dear halfling friend, I knew that I was no creature of calm and respite. I knew my nature was that of the warrior. I knew I was happiest when adventure and battle summoned me forth, demanding of those skills I had spent my entire life perfecting.

I relish it more now—is that because of my pain and loss, or is it merely a truer reflection of my heritage?

And if that is the case, will the cause of battle widen, will the code that guides my scimitars weaken to accommodate more moments of joy? At what point, I wonder—and I fear—does my desire for battle, that which is in my heart, interfere with that which is in my conscience? Is it easier now to justify drawing my blades?

That is my true fear, that this rage within me will come forth in all its madness—explosively, randomly, murderously.

My fear?

Or my hope?

—Drizzt Do’Urden





BATTLING THE DARKNESS


The Year of the Elves’ Weeping (1462 DR)


HERE THEY COME! OH, BE BRAVE BOYS AND HOLD THE TEAMS!” THE CARAVAN boss cried out to the men and women crouched in and around the wagons, weapons in hand. Off to the side of the road, the thicket shook with the approaching storm of enemies.

“Scrabblers,” one man said, his nickname for the agile and swift undead humanoids that had infested the region.

“Dustwalkers,” corrected another, and that name seemed equally fitting, for those marauders, undead monsters, left rails of gray powder in their wake, as if every step they took was their first out of the ashes of a burned out hearth—and indeed, the rumors said that the monsters were the animated corpses of those who had been buried beneath the volcanic ash a decade before.

“Guard!” the boss called out after a few more tense moments passed, without any clear sight of the enemy. “Go and scout the tree line.”

The hired guard, a stocky old dwarf with a beard of silver and orange, a shield emblazoned with the crest of the foaming mug, a many-notched axe, and a one-horned helmet, turned a wary eye on the leader.

The man swallowed hard under that withering gaze, but to his credit, managed to summon enough courage to once again motion toward the trees.

“I telled ye when ye hired me,” the dwarf warned. “Ye might be telling me what to fight, but ye ain’t telling me how to fight.”

“We cannot just sit here while they plot!”