Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(77)

Drizzt wondered if jealousy prompted that scowl. Jealousy of Drizzt and the cat, or of everything in general? Masoj had been left behind when Drizzt had gone to the surface. Masoj had been no more than a spectator when the victorious raiding party returned in glory. Drizzt backed away from Guenhwyvar, sensitive to the wizard’s pain.

As soon as Masoj had moved away to take his position farther down the line, Drizzt dropped to one knee and threw a headlock on Guenhwyvar.

Drizzt found himself even gladder for Guenhwyvar’s companionship when they passed beyond the familiar tunnels of the normal patrol routes. It was a saying in Menzoberranzan that “no one is as alone as the point of a draw patrol,” and Drizzt had come to understand this keenly in the last few months. He stopped at the far end of a wide way and held perfectly still, focusing his ears and eyes to the trails behind him. He knew that more than forty drow were approaching his position, fully arrayed for battle and agitated. Still, not a sound could Drizzt detect, and not a motion was discernable in the eerie shadows of cool stone. Drizzt looked down at Guenhwyvar, waiting patiently by his side, and started off again.

He could sense the hot presence of the war party at his back. That intangible sensation was the only thing that disproved Drizzt’s feelings that he and Guenhwyvar were quite alone.

Near the end of that day, Drizzt heard the first signs of trouble. As he neared an intersection in the tunnel, cautiously pressed close to one wall, he felt a subtle vibration in the stone. It came again a second ater, and then again, and Drizzt recognized it as the rhythmic tapping of a pick or hammer.

He took a magically heated sheet, a small square that fit into the palm of his hand, out of his pack. One side of the item was shielded in heavy leather, but the other shone brightly to eyes seeing in the infrared spectrum. Drizzt flashed it down the tunnel behind him, and a few seconds later, Dinin came up to his side.

“Hammer,” Drizzt signaled in the silent code, pointing to the wall. Dinin pressed against the stone and nodded in confirmation.

“Fifty yards?” Dinin’s hand motions asked.

“Less than one hundred,” Drizzt confirmed.

With his own prepared sheet, Dinin flashed the get-ready signal into the gloom behind him, then moved with Drizzt and Guenhwyvar around the intersection toward the tapping.

Only a moment later, Drizzt looked upon svirfnebli gnomes for the very first time. Ten guards stood barely twenty feet away, chest-high to a drow and hairless, with skin strangely akin to the stone in both texture and heat radiations.

The gnomes’ eyes glowed brightly in the telltale red of infravision. One glance at those eyes reminded Drizzt and Dinin that deep gnomes were as much at home in the darkness as were the drow, and they both prudently ducked behind a rocky outcropping in the tunnel.

Dinin promptly signaled to the next drow in line, and so on, until the entire party was alerted. Then he crouched low and peeked out around the bottom of the outcropping. The tunnel continued another thirty feet beyond the gnome guards and around a slight bend, ending in some larger chamber. Dinin couldn’t clearly see this area, but the glow of it, from the heat of the work and a cluster of bodies, spilled out into the corridor.

Again Dinin signaled back to his hidden comrades, and then he turned to Drizzt. “Stay here with the cat,” he instructed, and he darted back down around the intersection to formulate plans with the other leaders.

Masoj a few places back in the line, noted Dinin’s movement and wondered if the opportunity to deal with Drizzt had suddenly come upon him. If the patrol was discovered with Drizzt all alone up in front, was there some way Masoj could secretly blast the young Do’Urden? The opportunity, if ever it was truly there, passed quickly, though, as other drow soldiers came up beside the plotting wizard. Dinin soon returned from the back of the line and headed back to join his brother.

“The chamber has many exits,” Dinin signaled to Drizzt when they were together. “The other patrols are moving into position around the gnomes.”

“Might we parley with the gnomes?” Drizzt’s hands asked in reply, almost subconsciously. He recognized the expression spreading across Dinin’s face, but knew that he had already plunged in.

“Send them away without conflict?” Dinin grabbed Drizzt by the front of his piwafwi and pulled him close, too close, to that terrible scowl. “I will forget that you asked that question,” he whispered, and he dropped Drizzt back to the stone, considering the issue closed.

“You start the fight,” Dinin signaled. “When you see the sign from behind, darken the corridor and rush past the guards. Get to the gnome leader; he is the key to their strength with the stone.”

Drizzt didn’t fully understand what gnomish power his brother hinted at, but the instructions seemed simple enough, if somewhat suicidal.

“Take the cat if the cat will go,” Dinin continued. “The entire patrol will be by your side in moments. The remaining groups will come in from the other passages.”

Guenhwyvar nuzzled up to Drizzt, more than ready to follow him into battle. Drizzt took comfort in that when Dinin departed, leaving him alone again at the front. Only a few seconds later came the command to attack. Drizzt shook his head in disbelief when he saw the signal; how fast drow warriors found their positions!

He peeked around at the gnomish guards, still holding their silent vigil, completely unaware. Drizzt drew his blades and patted Guenhwyvar for luck, then called upon the innate magic of his race and dropped a globe of darkness in the corridor.