When Belwar and his forty miners arrived in the small cavern described by the advance scouts and inscribed with the gnomes mark of treasure, they found that the claims had not been exaggerated. The burrow-warden took care not to get overly excited, though. He knew that twenty thousand drow elves, the svirfnebli’s most hated and feared enemy, lived fewer than five miles away.
Escape tunnels became the first order of business, winding constructions high enough for a three-foot gnome but not for a taller pursuer. All along the course of these the gnomes placed breaker walls, designed to deflect a lightning bolt or offer some protection from the expanding flames of a fireball.
Then, when the true mining at last began, Belwar kept fully a third of his crew on guard at all times and walked the area of the work with one hand always clutching the magical emerald, the summoning stone, he kept on a chain around his neck.
"Three full patrol groups." Drizzt remarked to Dinin when they arrived at the open «field» on the eastern side of Menzoberranzan. Few stalagmites lined this region of the city, but it did not seem so open now, with dozens of anxious drow milling about.
"Gnomes are not to be taken lightly." Dinin replied. "They are wicked and powerful…"
"As wicked as surface elves?" Drizzt had to interrupt, covering his sarcasm with false exuberance.
"Almost." his brother warned grimly, missing the connotations of Drizzt’s question. Dinin pointed off to the side, where a contingent of female drow was coming in to join the group. "Clerics." he said, "and one of them a high priestess. The rumors of activity must have been confirmed."
A shudder coursed through Drizzt, a tingle of prebattle excitement. That excitement was altered and lessened, though, by fear, not of physical harm, or even of the gnomes. Drizzt feared that this encounter might be a repeat of the surface tragedy.
He shook the black thoughts away and reminded himself that this time, unlike the surface expedition, his home was being invaded. The gnomes had crossed the boundaries of the drow realm. If they were as evil as Dinin and all the others claimed, Menzoberranzan had no choice but to respond with force. If Drizzt’s patrol, the most celebrated group among the males, was selected to lead, and Drizzt, as always, took the point position. Still unsure, he wasn’t thrilled with the assignment, and as they started out, Drizzt even contemplated leading the group astray. Or perhaps, Drizzt thought, he could contact the gnomes privately before the others arrived and warn them to flee.
Drizzt realized the absurdity of the notion. He couldn’t stop the wheels of Menzoberranzan from turning along their designated course, and he couldn’t do anything to hinder the two score drow warriors, excited and impatient, at his back. Again he was trapped and on the edge of despair. Masoj Hun’ett appeared then and made everything better.
"Guenhwyvar!" the young wizard called, and the great panther came bounding. Masoj left the cat beside Drizzt and headed back toward his place in the line.
Guenhwyvar could no more hide its elation at seeing Drizzt than Drizzt could contain his own smile. With the interruption of the surface raid, and then his time back home, he hadn’t seen Guenhwyvar in more than a month.
Guenhwyvar thumped against Drizzt’s side as it passed, nearly knocking the slender drow from his feet. Drizzt responded with a heavy pat, vigorously rubbing a hand over the cat’s ear.
They both turned back together, suddenly conscious of the unhappy glare boring into them. There stood Masoj, arms crossed over his chest and a visible scowl heating up his face.
"I shan’t use the cat to kill Drizzt." the young wizard muttered to himself. "I want the pleasure for myself." 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 drow 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 later, 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. The guards stood barely twenty feet away, chesthigh 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.