He reminded himself that this was a Baenre, and so the armor Tiago wore and the quiet magical items set on his person were likely superior to anything Drizzt had faced in many a decade.
The ranger stepped into the room to face his nemesis.
“How many years have you pursued me now, Tiago of House Baenre?” Drizzt asked.
“Decades,” Tiago corrected. “Did you ever believe that I would stop? Did you secretly hope that this day would never come, cowardly rogue?”
“Yours is a foolish endeavor and a worthless quest.”
“I’ll not think it worthless when I hand your head to the matron mother.”
Drizzt sighed and shook his head. They were doomed, his people. Doomed forever to their stupid traditions and dishonorable manners. The drow would war upon the drow until time’s end. They would waste their talent and potential, their ability to truly do good for the world, in their endless pursuits of gaining the upper hand, of personal aggrandizement, of petty revenge.
“If only. .” Drizzt mumbled, and not for the first time. “I had no desire to fight you,” he said instead.
“Then surrender and save yourself the pain,” Tiago replied. “I will be as merciful as you deserve.” With that, he started walking toward Drizzt, but veered off to the ranger’s left, circling, and Drizzt, too, began to move, keeping himself square with Tiago.
“Had no desire,” Drizzt emphasized. “For truly your quest seems a silly thing. But then, you see, I only thought of the pain you brought to the people of Icewind Dale, to the people of Port Llast, and. .”
“And to the dwarves of Icewind Dale?” Tiago finished. “Ah yes, what fine slaves they make! Until they are worked to their miserable deaths, of course.”
Drizzt narrowed his lavender eyes. He focused on his enemy’s weapon and noted the delicate curve of that starlit blade. It wasn’t quite as curved as Drizzt’s own blades, but it was as much scimitar as straight long sword, leading Drizzt to believe that Tiago fought in circles, much like Drizzt, rather than the straight ahead and straight back routines more common among the drow who used long swords.
They continued to circle and Drizzt kept making mental notes of this mostly unknown opponent, who had likely studied many of the tales of Drizzt’s fighting style and exploits. Tiago had the edge, Drizzt knew, because Tiago had not ventured into a fight with the unknown.
“Leap upon me, O great Drizzt Do’Urden,” the noble son of House Baenre taunted. “Let your hatred flow to your blades. Let me prove who is the stronger.”
When Drizzt didn’t accept that invitation, Tiago took it upon himself, leaping wildly into the air, flying for Drizzt, falling over Drizzt, his shield spinning and widening and sweeping clear of his flank as he burrowed in behind it, Vidrinath slashing hard.
Drizzt was too quick for such a straightforward attack, of course, and he quickly dodged, first to his right, as Tiago surely anticipated, but then fast back to his left, in front of the sweep of the shield. He took Tiago’s sword down harmlessly to the side with his right-hand blade, Icingdeath, leaving him in a half-turn that aligned Twinkle perfectly with the younger drow’s exposed side.
But Tiago landed in a spin, with amazing speed and balance, and he came all the way around to bring his shield to bear in time to block the counter.
Out came Vidrinath with three quick stabs, low, high, and low again.
Up went Twinkle to lift the first harmlessly away. Drizzt hopped back from the second, and down came Twinkle to crash against the third strike, driving Tiago’s sword down to the side, across Tiago’s body. Drizzt went out to the left behind the parry, and Tiago spun again and wisely went down low in a crouch so that Drizzt’s stab came in high.
Tiago slashed across with his shield.
Drizzt hopped it and came down with both blades, but Tiago’s shield was too large now, and the skilled young warrior brought it up deftly from the slash to cover above.
Twinkle and Icingdeath struck solidly on the shield, and seemed to hold there for just a heartbeat, allowing Tiago to come up fast and hard, stabbing out his sword from under the lifting, horizontal shield.
Drizzt wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, or why he hadn’t disengaged his blades fast enough to properly respond. That question followed him through his desperate backstepping.
Desperate, but not quite fast enough. Tiago’s brilliant sword caught up to him and stuck him, just a bit, until Drizzt could bring his scimitars to bear in driving the biting blade away. He was hurt, in the belly, and he felt the sting.
But that was hardly the worst of his problems, Drizzt realized. He felt something else within that sting: the familiar burn of drow sleeping poison. The sword was Vidrinath, after all, the drow word for lullaby.
Drizzt grimaced and fought against the poison, one whose sting he had suffered many times before. A lesser drow, a lesser warrior, would have been slowing already from the dose that sword had inflicted, but when Tiago came confidently on, he found a flurry of scimitars blurring in his path and inevitably driving him back.
Drizzt took the offensive, fearing that time might work against him as the poison seeped deeper into his body. His scimitars rolled over each other, stabbing and slashing from many different angles. He felt the same frustration as he had that day on the dragon. Tiago was simply too good with that shield to allow for any clean hits-and now Drizzt had learned the hard way to be wary of that shield, suspecting that it had grabbed his blades, allowing Tiago the strike.
He had to formulate some new attack routine, had to piece together a strategy in the middle of the frenzy to somehow separate the Baenre warrior enough from his shield so that he could slip one of his blades past the guard.
Drizzt reached into his innate magic, the reverberations of the Faerzress still within him despite his many decades on the surface. Tiago’s frame lit up in purplish flames of faerie fire, harmless except that they outlined him more clearly for his opponent.
Tiago skidded to a stop, glancing at himself with incredulity, then did likewise to Drizzt, limning him with angry red flames-dark elf warriors in Menzoberranzan hardly bothered with the faerie fire when engaged in melee with each other.
For Drizzt, though, the pause gave him a moment of clarity, which was the whole point, and in that moment, he searched for answers. He came on furiously once more, red and purple flames licking each other as the two combatants passed and turned.
Vidrinath came out in a solid thrust, and across came Icingdeath to drive it wide to Drizzt’s left.
But Tiago rolled with the blow, his shield sliding back into alignment to slow any pursuit Drizzt might have intended. And then Tiago swung back the other way, suddenly and powerfully.
Up came Twinkle to block, a ringing blow-one heavier than Drizzt had anticipated, telling him that Tiago was likely in possession of some item, a belt or a ring, that granted him magical strength beyond his musculature and training.
Drizzt only fought the heavy blow for the blink of an eye, thrusting Twinkle vertically to intercept before collapsing to the right, falling into a roll. Sparks flew as Tiago’s sword crashed against Twinkle, and unknown to the combatants, so, too, flew a piece of Drizzt’s left-hand scimitar, compromising the integrity of the blade.
The greatest power of Vidrinath wasn’t its poisoning bite, but the simple craftsmanship of the weapon. It had been created in this very complex, at the Forge of Gauntlgrym, with primordial fire and by the greatest drow weaponsmith of the age, using an ancient recipe reserved for this one special blade.