Exile: The Legend of Drizzt by R. A. Salvatore Read Free Book Online Page B

heard them so easily, for he remembered those days when he had taken the point position on such patrols. How alone he had felt then, up at the lead of more than a dozen dark elves, for they made not a whisper with their practiced movements and they kept to the shadows so well that even Drizzt’s keen eyes could not begin to locate them.
    And yet, this hunter that Drizzt had become, this primal, instinctive self, had found this group easily.

    Briza stopped suddenly and closed her eyes, concentrating on the emanations of her spell of location.
    “What is it?” Dinin’s fingers asked her when she looked back to him. Her startled and obviously excited expression revealed much.
    “Drizzt?” Dinin breathed aloud, hardly able to believe.
    “Silence!” Briza’s hands cried out at him. She glanced around to survey her surroundings, then signaled to the patrol to follow her to the shadows of the wall in the immense, and exposed, cavern.
    Briza nodded her confirmation to Dinin then, confident that their mission would at last be completed.
    “Can you be sure it is Drizzt?” Dinin’s fingers asked. In his excitement, he could barely keep the movements precise enough to convey his thoughts. “Perhaps some scavenger—”
    “We know that our brother lives,” Briza motioned quickly. “Matron Malice would no longer be out of Lolth’s favor if it were otherwise. And if Drizzt lives, then we can assume that he possesses the item!”

    The sudden evasive movement of the patrol caught Drizzt by surprise. The group could not possibly have seen him under the cover of the jutting rocks, and he held faith in the silence of his footfalls, and of Guenhwyvar’s. Yet Drizzt felt certain that it was he the patrol was hiding from. Something felt out of place in this whole encounter. Dark elves were rare this far from Menzoberranzan. Perhaps it was no more than the paranoia necessary to survive in the wilds of the Underdark, Drizzt told himself. Still, he suspected that more than chance had brought this group to his domain.
    “Go, Guenhwyvar,” he whispered to the cat. “View our guests and return to me.” The panther sped away through the shadows circumventing the large cavern. Drizzt sank low into the rubble, listened, and waited.
    Guenhwyvar returned to him only a minute later, though it seemed an eternity to Drizzt.
    “Did you know them?” Drizzt asked. The cat scratched a paw across the stone.
    “Of our old patrol?” Drizzt wondered aloud. “The fighters you and I walked beside?”
    Guenhwyvar seemed uncertain and made no definite movements.
    “A Hun’ett then,” Drizzt said, thinking he had solved the riddle. House Hun’ett had at last come looking for him to repay him for the deaths of Alton and Masoj, the two Hun’ett wizards who had died trying to kill Drizzt. Or perhaps the Hun’etts had come in search of Guenhwyvar, the magical item that Masoj once had possessed.
    When Drizzt took a moment from his pondering to study Guenhwyvar’s reaction, he realized that his assumptions were wrong. The panther had backed away from him a step and seemed agitated by his stream of suppositions.
    “Then who?” Drizzt asked. Guenhwyvar reared up on its hind legs and straddled Drizzt’s shoulders, one great paw patting Drizzt’s neck-purse. Not understanding, Drizzt slipped the item off his neck and emptied its contents into a palm, revealing a few gold coins, a small gemstone, and the emblem of his house, a silvery token engraved with the initials of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, House Do’Urden. Drizzt realized at once what Guenhwyvar was hinting at.
    “My family,” he whispered harshly. Guenhwyvar backed away from him and again scratched a paw excitedly across the stone.
    A thousand memories flooded through Drizzt at that moment, but all of them, good and bad, led him inescapably to one possibility: Matron Malice had neither forgiven nor forgotten his actions on that fated day. Drizzt had abandoned her and the ways of the