Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(27)

Alton’s despair only deepened when he considered the actual time frame involved. He had just passed his seventieth birthday and was still young by drow standards. The notion that only a tenth of his life was behind him was not a comforting one to Alton DeVir this night.

“How long will I survive?” he asked himself. “How long until this madness that is my existence consumes me?” Alton looked back out over the city. “Better that the Faceless One had killed me,” he whispered. “For now I am Alton of No House Worth Mentioning.”

Masoj had dubbed him that on the first morning after House DeVir’s fall, but way back then, with his life teetering on the edge of a crossbow, Alton had not understood the title’s implications. Menzoberranzan was nothing more than a collection of individual houses. A rogue commoner might latch on to one of them to call his own, but a rogue noble wouldn’t likely be accepted by any house in the city. He was left with Sorcere and nothing more... until his true identity was discovered at last. What punishments would he then face for the crime of killing a master? Masoj may have committed the crime, but Masoj had a house to defend him. Alton was only a rogue noble.

He sat back on his elbows and watched the rising heat-light of Narbondel. As the minutes became hours, Alton’s despair and self pity went through inevitable change. He turned his attention to the individual drow houses now, not to the conglomeration that bound them as a city, and he wondered what dark secrets each harbored. One of them, Alton reminded himself, held the secret he most dearly wanted to know. One of them had wiped out House DeVir.

Forgotten was the night’s failure with Matron Ginafae and the yochlol, forgotten was the lament for an early death. Sixteen years was not so long a time, Alton decided. He had perhaps seven centuries of life left within his slender frame. If he had to, Alton was prepared to spend every minute of those long years searching for the perpetrating house.

“Vengeance,” he growled aloud, needing, feeding off, that audible reminder of his only reason for continuing to draw breath.





Chapter 8

Kindred


Zak pressed in with a series of low thrusts. Drizzt tried to back away quickly and return to even footing, but the relentless assault followed his every step, and he was forced to keep his movements solely on the defensive. More often than not, Drizzt found the hilts of his weapons closer to Zak than the blades.

Zak then dropped into a low crouch and came up under Drizzt’s defense.

Drizzt twirled his scimitars in a masterful cross, but he had to straighten stiffly to dodge the weapon master’s equally deft assault. Drizzt knew that he had been set up, and he fully expected the next attack as Zak shifted his weight to his back leg and dove in, both sword tips aimed for Drizzt’s loins.

Drizzt spat a silent curse and spun his scimitars into a downward cross, meaning to use the “V,” of his blades to catch his teacher’s swords. On a sudden impulse, Drizzt hesitated as he intercepted Zak’s weapons, and he jumped away instead, taking a painful slap on the inside of one thigh. Disgusted, he threw both of his scimitars to the floor.

Zak, too, leaped back. He held his swords out to his sides, a look of sincere confusion on his face. “You should not have missed that move,” he said bluntly.

“The parry is wrong,” Drizzt replied. Awaiting further explanation, Zak lowered one sword tip to the floor and leaned on the weapon. In past years, Zak had wounded, even killed, students for such blatant defiance, his blades down to Drizzt’s face level.

When Drizzt came clear of the other side of the darkened globe, he looked back and saw only the lower half of Zak’s legs. He didn’t need to watch anything more to understand the weapon master’s deadly blind attacks. Zak would have cut him apart if he had not dropped low in the blackness.

Anger replaced confusion. When Zak dropped from his magical perch and came rushing back out the front of the globe, Drizzt let his rage lead him back into the fight. He spun a pirouette just before he reached Zak, his lead scimitar cutting a gracefully arcing line and his other following in a deceptively sharp stab straight over that line.

Zak dodged the thrusting point and put a backhand block on the other. Drizzt wasn’t finished. He set his thrusting blade into a series of short, wicked pokes that kept Zak on the retreat for a dozen steps and more, back into the conjured darkness. They now had to rely on their incredibly keen sense of hearing and their instincts. Zak finally managed to regain afoot hold, but Drizzt immediately set his own feet into action, kicking away whenever the balance of his swinging blades allowed for it. One foot even slipped through Zak’s defenses, blasting the breath from the weapon master’s lungs.

They came back out the side of the globe, and Zak, too, glowed in the outline of faerie fire. The weapon master felt sickened by the hatred etched on his young student’s face, but he realized that this time, neither he nor Drizzt had been given a choice in the matter. This fight had to be ugly, had to be real. Gradually, Zak settled into an easy rhythm, solely defensive, and let Drizzt, in his explosive fury, wear himself down.

Drizzt played on and on, relentless and tireless. Zak coaxed him by letting him see openings where there were none, and Drizzt was always quick to oblige, launching a thrust, cut, or kick.

Matron Malice watched the spectacle silently. She couldn’t deny the measure of training Zak had given her son; Drizzt was-physically-more than ready for battle. ~~: