Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(40)

“I have you!” the young drow cried. Zak’s answer came in an explosion of light beyond anything Drizzt had ever imagined.

Zak had prudently closed his eyes, but Drizzt, surprised, could not accept the sudden change. His head burned in agony, and he reeled backwards, trying to get away from the light, away from the weapon master.

Keeping his eyes tightly shut, Zak had already divorced himself from the need of vision. He let his keen ears guide him now, and Drizzt, shuffling and stumbling, was an easy target to discern. In a single motion, the whip came off Zak’s belt and he lashed out, catching Drizzt around the ankles and dropping him to the floor.

Methodically, the weapon master came on, dreading every step but knowing his chosen course of action to be correct.

Drizzt realized that he was being stalked, but he could not understand the motive. The light had stunned him, but he was more surprised by Zak’s continuation of the battle. Drizzt set himself, unable to escape the trap, and tried to think his way around his loss of sight. He had to feel the flow of battle, to hear the sounds of his attacker and anticipate each coming strike.

He brought his scimitars up just in time to block a sword chop that would have split his skull.

Zak hadn’t expected the parry. He recoiled and came in from a different angle. Again he was foiled.

Now more curious than wanting to kill Drizzt, the weapon master went through a series of attacks, sending his sword into motions that would have sliced through the defenses of many who could see him.

Blinded, Drizzt fought him off, putting a scimitar in line with each new thrust.

“Treachery!” Drizzt yelled, painful residual explosions from the bright light still bursting inside his head. He blocked another attack and tried to regain his footing, realizing that he had little chance of continuing to fend off the weapon master from a prone position.

The pain of the stinging light was too great, though, and Drizzt, barely holding the edge of consciousness, stumbled back to the stone, losing one scimitar in the process. He spun over wildly, knowing that Zak was closing in.

The other scimitar was knocked from his hand. “Treachery,” Drizzt growled again. “Do you so hate to lose?”

“Do you not understand?” Zak yelled back at him. “To lose is to die! You may win a thousand fights, but you can only lose one!” He put his sword in line with Drizzt’s throat. It would be a single clean blow. He knew that he should do it, mercifully, before the masters of the Academy got hold of his charge.

Zak sent his sword spinning across the room, and he reached out with his empty hands, grabbed Drizzt by the front of his shirt, and hoisted him to his feet.

They stood face-to-face, neither seeing the other very well in the blinding glare, and neither able to break the tense silence. After a long and breathless moment, the dweomer of the enchanted pebble faded and the room became more comfortable. Truly, the two dark elves looked upon each other in a different light.

“A trick of Lloth’s clerics,” Zak explained. “Always they keep such a spell of light at the ready,” A strained smile crossed his face as he tried to ease Drizzt’s anger. “Although I daresay that I have turned such light against clerics, even high priestesses, more than a few times.”

“Treachery,” Drizzt spat a third time.

“It is our way,” Zak replied. “You will learn.”

“It is your way,” snarled Drizzt. “You grin when you speak of murdering clerics of the Spider Queen. Do you so enjoy killing? Killing drow?”

Zak could not find an answer to the accusing question. Drizzt’s words hurt him profoundly because they rang of truth, and because Zak had come to view his penchant for killing clerics of Lloth as a cowardly response to his own unanswerable frustrations.

“You would have killed me,” Drizzt said bluntly.

“But I did not,” Zak retorted. “And now you live to go to the Academy-to take a dagger in the back because you are blind to the realities of our world, because you refuse to acknowledge what your people are.

“Or you will become one of them,” Zak growled. “Either way, the Drizzt Do’Urden I have known will surely die.”

Drizzt’s face twisted, and he couldn’t even find the words to dispute the possibilities Zak was spitting at him. He felt the blood drain from his face, though his heart raged. He walked away, letting his glare linger on Zak for many steps.

“Go, then, Drizzt Do’Urden!” Zak cried after him. “Go to the Academy and bask in the glory of your prowess. Remember, though, the consequences of such skills. Always there are consequences!”

Zak retreated to the security of his private chamber. The door to the room closed behind the weapon master with such a sound of finality that it spun Zak back to face its empty stone.

“Go, then, Drizzt Do’Urden,” he whispered in quiet lament. “Go to the Academy and learn who you really are,” Dinin came for his brother early the next morning. Drizzt slowly left the training room, looking back over his shoulder every few steps to see if Zak would come out and attack him again or bid him farewell.

He knew in his heart that Zak would not. Drizzt had thought them friends, had believed that the bond he and Zaknafein had sown went far beyond the simple lessons and swordplay. The young drow had no answers to the many questions spinning in his mind, and the person who had been his teacher for the last five years had nothing left to offer him.