Salvatore, R A - Legacy of the Drow 1 - The Legacy

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Salvatore - Legacy 01 - Legacy

eVersion 2.0 - see revision notes at end of text

Legacy

R. A. Salvatore

Book 1 of the Legacy of the Drow series

CONTENTS

Prelude

PART 1 -THE INSPIRING FEAR

1 -Spring Dawning

2 -Together

3 -Parley

4 -Dwarven Toy

5 -Ye of Little Faith

PART 2 -PERCEPTIONS

6 -A Path, Straight and Smooth

7 -Quiet in the Darkness

8 -Sparks A-Flying

9 -Too Clean Cuts

10 -In the Facets of a Wondrous Gem

PART 3 -LEGACY

11 -Family Business

12 -The Truth Be Known

13 -Broken Vows

14 -Overmatched

PART 4 -CAT AND MOUSE

15 -The Play's the Thing

16 -Drawing Lines

17 -Friendly Burden

18 -Common Danger

19 -Sacrifice

PART 5 -END GAME

20 -Suddenly

21 -Mountain Valley Winds

22 -Charge of the Heavy Brigade

23 -The Warrior Incarnate

24 -The Long Walk Home

25 -The Palm of Her Hand

Epilogue

Prelude

The rogue Dinin made his way carefully through the dark avenues of

Menzoberranzan, the city of drow. A renegade, with no family to call his own

for nearly twenty years, the seasoned fighter knew well the perils of the

city, and knew how to avoid them. He passed an abandoned compound along the

two mile-long cavern's western wall and could not help but pause and stare.

Twin stalagmite mounds supported a blasted fence around the whole of the

place, and two sets of broken doors, one on the ground and one beyond a

balcony twenty feet up the wall, hung open awkwardly on twisted and scorched

hinges. How many times had Dinin levitated up to that balcony, entering the

private quarters of the nobles of his house, House Do'Urden?

House Do'Urden. It was forbidden even to speak the name in the drow city.

Once, Dinin's family had been the eighth-ranked among the sixty or so drow

families in Menzoberranzan; his mother had sat on the ruling council; and he,

Dinin, had been a Master at Melee-Magthere, the School of Fighters, at the

famed drow Academy.

Standing before the compound, it seemed to Dinin as if the place were a

thousand years removed from that time of glory. His family was no more, his

house lay in ruins, and Dinin had been forced to take up with Bregan D'aerthe,

an infamous mercenary band, simply to survive.

"Once," the rogue drow mouthed quietly. He shook his slender shoulders and

pulled his concealing piwafwi cloak around him, remembering how vulnerable a

houseless drow could be. A quick glance toward the center of the cavern,

toward the pillar that was Narbondel, showed him that the hour was late. At

the break of each day, the Arch-mage of Menzoberranzan went out to Narbondel

and infused the pillar with a magical, lingering heat that would work its way

up, then back down. To sensitive drow eyes, which could look into the infrared

spectrum, the level of heat in the pillar acted as a gigantic glowing clock.

Now Narbondel was almost cool; another day neared its end.

Dinin had to go more than halfway across the city, to a secret cave within the

Clawrift, a great chasm running out from Menzoberranzan's northwestern wall.

There Jarlaxle, the leader of Bregan D'aerthe, waited in one of his many

hideouts.

The drow fighter cut across the center of the city, passed right by Narbondel,

and beside more than a hundred hollowed stalagmites, comprising a dozen

separate family compounds, their fabulous sculptures and gargoyles glowing in

multicolored faerie fire. Drow soldiers, walking posts along house walls or

along the bridges connecting multitudes of leering stalactites, paused and

regarded the lone stranger carefully, hand crossbows or poisoned javelins held

ready until Dinin was far beyond them.

That was the way in Menzoberranzan: always alert, always distrustful.

Dinin gave one careful look around when he reached the edge of the Clawrift,

then slipped over the side and used his innate powers of levitation to slowly

descend into the chasm. More than a hundred feet down, he again looked into

the bolts of readied hand crossbows, but these were withdrawn as soon as the

mercenary guardsmen recognized Dinin as one of their own.

Jarlaxle has been waiting for you, one of the guards signaled in the intricate

silent hand code of the dark elves.

Dinin didn't bother to respond. He owed commoner soldiers no explanations. He

pushed past the guardsmen rudely, making his way down a short tunnel that soon

branched into a virtual maze of corridors and rooms. Several turns later, the

dark elf stopped before a shimmering door, thin and almost translucent. He put

his hand against its surface, letting his body heat make an impression that

heat-sensing eyes on the other side would understand as a knock.

"At last," he heard a moment later, in Jarlaxle's voice. "Do come in, Dinin,

my Khal'abbil. You have kept me waiting far too long."

Dinin paused a moment to get a bearing on the unpredictable mercenary's

inflections and words. Jarlaxle had called him Khal'abbil, "my trusted

friend," his nickname for Dinin since the raid that had destroyed House

Do'Urden (a raid in which Jarlaxle had played a prominent role), and there was

no obvious sarcasm in the mercenary's tone. There seemed to be nothing wrong

at all. But, why, then, had Jarlaxle recalled him from his critical scouting

mission to House Vandree, the Seventeenth House of Menzoberranzan? Dinin

wondered. It had taken Dinin nearly a year to gain the trust of the imperiled

Vandree house guard, a position, no doubt, that would be severely jeopardized

by his unexplained absence from the house compound.

There was only one way to find out, the rogue soldier decided. He held his

breath and forced his way into the opaque barrier. It seemed as if he were

passing through a wall of thick water, though he did not get wet, and, after

several long steps across the flowing extraplanar border of two planes of

existence, he forced his way through the seemingly inch-thick magical door and

entered Jarlaxle's small room.

The room was alight in a comfortable red glow, allowing Dinin to shift his

eyes from the infrared to the normal light spectrum. He blinked as the

transformation completed, then blinked again, as always, when he looked at

Jarlaxle.

The mercenary leader sat behind a stone desk in an exotic cushioned chair,

supported by a single stem with a swivel so that it could rock back at a

considerable angle. Comfortably perched, as always, Jarlaxle had the chair

leaning way back, his slender hands clasped behind his clean-shaven head (so

unusual for a drow!).

Just for amusement, it seemed, Jarlaxle lifted one foot onto the table, his

high black boot hitting the stone with a resounding thump, then lifted the

other, striking the stone just as hard, but this boot making not a whisper.

The mercenary wore his ruby-red eye patch over his right eye this day, Dinin

noted.

To the side of the desk stood a trembling little humanoid creature, barely

half Dinin's five-and-a-half-foot height, including the small white horns

protruding from the top of its sloping brow.

"One of House Oblodra's kobolds," Jarlaxle explained casually. "It seems the

pitiful thing found its way in, but cannot so easily find its way back out."

The reasoning seemed sound to Dinin. House Oblodra, the Third House of

Menzoberranzan, occupied a tight compound at the end of the Clawrift and was

rumored to keep thousands of kobolds for torturous pleasure, or to serve as

house fodder in the event of a war.

"Do you wish to leave?" Jarlaxle asked the creature in a guttural, simplistic

language.

The kobold nodded eagerly, stupidly.

Jarlaxle indicated the opaque door, and the creature darted for it. It had not

the strength to penetrate the barrier, though, and it bounced back, nearly

landing on Dinin's feet. Before it even bothered to get up, the kobold

foolishly sneered in contempt at the mercenary leader.

Jarlaxle's hand flicked several times, too quickly for Dinin to count. The

drow fighter reflexively tensed, but knew better than to move, knew that

Jarlaxle's aim was always perfect.

When he looked down at the kobold, he saw five daggers sticking from its

lifeless body, a perfect star formation on the scaly creature's little chest.

Jarlaxle only shrugged at Dinin's confused stare. "I could not allow the beast

to return to Oblodra," he reasoned, "not after it learned of our compound so

near theirs."

Dinin shared Jarlaxle's laugh. He started to retrieve the daggers, but

Jarlaxle reminded him that there was no need.

"They will return of their own accord," the mercenary explained, pulling at

the edge of his bloused sleeve to reveal the magical sheath enveloping his

wrist. "Do sit," he bade his friend, indicating an unremarkable stool at the

side of the desk. "We have much to discuss."

"Why did you recall me?" Dinin asked bluntly as he took his place beside the

desk. "I had infiltrated Vandree fully."

"Ah, my Khal'abbil," Jarlaxle replied. "Always to the point. That is a quality

I do so admire in you."

"Uln'hyrr," Dinin retorted, the drow word for "liar."

Vierna. Malice, Vierna's mother and Matron of House Do'Urden, had ultimately

been undone by her failure to recapture and kill the traitorous Drizzt.

Vierna did calm down, then she began a fit of mocking laughter that went on

for many minutes.

"You see why I summoned you?" Jarlaxle remarked to Dinin, taking no heed of

the priestess.

"You wish me to kill her before she can become a problem?" Dinin replied

equally casually.

Vierna's laughter halted; her wild-eyed gaze fell over her impertinent

brother. "Wishyal" she cried, and a wave of magical energy hurled Dinin from

his seat, sent him crashing into the stone wall.

"Kneel!" Vierna commanded, and Dinin, when he regained his composure, fell to

his knees, all the while looking blankly at Jarlaxle.

The mercenary, too, could not hide his surprise. This last command was a

simple spell, certainly not one that should have worked so easily on a

seasoned fighter of Dinin's stature.

"I am in Lloth's favor," Vierna, standing tall and straight, explained to both

of them. "If you oppose me, then you are not, and with the power of Lloth's

blessings for my spells and curses against you, you will find no defense."

"The last we heard of Drizzt placed him on the surface," Jarlaxle said to

Vierna, to deflect her rising anger. "By all reports, he remains there still."

Vierna nodded, grinning weirdly all the while, her pearly white teeth

contrasting dramatically with her shining ebony skin. "He does," she agreed,

"but Lloth has shown me the way to him, the way to glory."

Again, Jarlaxle and Dinin exchanged confused glances. By all their estimates,

Vierna's claims-and Vierna herself-sounded insane.

But Dinin, against his will and against all measures of sanity, was still

kneeling.

Part 1

The Inspiring Fear

Nearly three decades have passed since I left my home-land, a small measure of

time by the reckoning of a drow elf, but a period that seems a lifetime to me.

All I desired, or believed that I desired, when I walked out of

Menzoberranzan's dark cavern, was a true home, a place of friendship and peace

where I might hang my scimitars above the mantle of a warm hearth and share

stories with trusted companions.

I have found all that now, beside Bruenor in the hallowed halls of his youth.

We prosper. We have peace. I wear my weapons only on my five-day journeys

between Mithril Hall and Silvery-moon.

Was I wrong?

I do not doubt, nor do I ever lament, my decision to leave the vile world of

Menzoberranzan, but I am beginning to believe now, in the (endless) quiet and

peace, that my desires at that critical time were founded in the inevitable

longing of inexperience. I had never known that calm existence I so badly

wanted.

I cannot deny that my life is better, a thousand times better, than anything I

ever knew in the Underdark. And yet, I cannot remember the last time I felt

the anxiety, the inspiring fear, of impending battle, the tingling that can

come only when an enemy is near or a challenge must be met.

Oh, I do remember the specific instance-just a year ago, when Wulfgar,

Guenhwyvar, and I worked the lower tunnels in the cleansing of Mithril Hall-

but that feeling, that tingle of fear, has long since faded from memory.

Are we then creatures of action? Do we say that we desire those accepted

cliches of comfort when, in fact, it is the challenge and the adventure that

truly give us life?

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Salvatore-Legacy01-LegacyeVersion2.0-seerevisionnotesatendoftextLegacybyR.A.SalvatoreBook1oftheLegacyoftheDrowseriesCONTENTSPreludePART1-THEINSPIRINGFEAR1-SpringDawning2-Together3-Parley4-DwarvenToy5-YeofLittleFaithPART2-PERCEPTIONS6-APath,StraightandSmooth7-QuietintheDarkness8-SparksA-Flying9-TooCl...

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Salvatore, R A - Legacy of the Drow 1 - The Legacy

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