one group of footprints close together, moving side by side, the way a goblin band might travel. He could read those prints, where they had come from and where they were going, and he had not come out from Kelvin's Cairn for any fight. He took special note of them now simply to avoid the creatures who had made them.
Soon Drizzt found the tracks he desired, two sets of prints from soft boots, man-sized, traveling slowly, as a hunter would stalk. He noted that the deepest depression by far was near the ball of the foot. Barbarians walked in a toe-heel manner, not the heel-toe stride used by most of the peoples of the Realms. There could be no doubt now for the ranger. He had ventured near to the barbarian encampment the night before, meaning to go in and speak with Revjak and Berkthgar. Listening secretly from the darkness, however, the drow had discovered that Berkthgar intended to go out on a hunt the next day, alone with Revjak's son.
That news unsettled Drizzt at first-did Berkthgar mean to indirectly strike a blow at Revjak and kill the boy?
Drizzt had quickly dismissed that silly notion; he knew Berkthgar. For all their differences, the man was honorable and no murderer. More likely, Drizzt reasoned, Berkthgar was trying to win over the trust of Revjak's son, strengthening his base of power within the tribe.
Drizzt had stayed out of the encampment all the night, in the darkness, undetected. He had moved safely away before the dawn and had subsequently circled far to the north.
Now he had found the tracks, two men, side by side. They were an hour ahead of him, but moving as hunters, and so Drizzt was confident that he would find them in but a few minutes.
The ranger slowed his pace a moment later when he found that the tracks split, the smaller set going off to the west, the larger continuing straight north. Drizzt followed the larger, figuring them to be Berkthgar's, and a few minutes later, he spotted the giant barbarian, kneeling on the tundra, shielding his eyes and peering hard to the north and west.
Drizzt slowed and moved cautiously. He discovered that he was nervous at the sight of the imposing man. Drizzt and Berkthgar had argued many times in the past, usually when Drizzt was serving Bruenor as liaison to Settlestone, where Berkthgar
ruled. This time was different, Drizzt realized. Berkthgar was back home now, needing nothing from Bruenor, and that might make the man more dangerous.
Drizzt had to find out. That was why he had come out from Kelvin's Cairn in the first place. He moved silently, step by step, until he was within a few yards of the still-kneeling, apparently oblivious barbarian.
"My greetings, Berkthgar," the ranger said. His sudden voice did not appear to startle the barbarian, and Drizzt believed that Berkthgar, so at home on the tundra, had sensed his approach.
Berkthgar rose slowly and turned to face the drow.
Drizzt looked to the west, to a speck on the distant tundra. "Your hunting partner?" he asked.
"Revjak's son, Kierstaad by name," Berkthgar replied. "A fine boy."
"And what of Revjak?" Drizzt asked.
Berkthgar paused a moment, jaw firm. "It was whispered that you had returned to the dale," he said.
"Is that a good thing in the eyes of Berkthgar?"
"No," came the simple reply. "The tundra is wide, drow. Wide enough so that we will not have to meet again." Berkthgar began to turn away, as if that was all that had to be said, but Drizzt wasn't ready to let things go just yet.
"Why would you desire that?" Drizzt asked innocently, trying to push Berkthgar into playing his hand openly. Drizzt wanted to know just how far the barbarians were moving away from the dwarves and the folk of Ten-Towns. Were they to become invisible partners sharing the tundra, or, as they once had been, sworn enemies?
"Revjak calls me friend," Drizzt went on. "When I left the dale those years ago, I named Revjak among those I would truly miss."
"Revjak is an old man," Berkthgar said evenly.
"Revjak speaks for the tribe."
"No!" Berkthgar's response came fast and sharp. Then he quickly calmed and his smile told Drizzt that the denial was true. "No more does Revjak speak for the tribe," Berkthgar went on.
"Berkthgar, then?" Drizzt asked.
The huge barbarian nodded, smiling still. "I have returned to lead my people," he said. "Away from the errors of Wulfgar and
Revjak, back to the ways we once knew, when we were free, when we answered to no one but our own and our god."
Drizzt thought on that for a moment. The proud young man was truly deluding himself, the drow realized, for those old times that Berkthgar spoke of so reverently were not as carefree and wonderful as the huge man apparently believed. Those years were marked by war, usually between tribes competing for food that was often scarce. Barbarians starved to death and froze to death, and often wound up as meals for tundra yeti, or for the great white bears that also followed the reindeer herd along the coast of the Sea of Moving Ice.
That was the danger of nostalgia, Drizzt realized. One often remembered the good of the past while forgetting the troubles.
"Then Berkthgar speaks for the tribes," Drizzt agreed. "Will he lead them to despair? To war?"
"War is not always despair," the barbarian said coolly. "And do you forget so soon that following the course of Wulfgar led us to war with your own people?"
Drizzt had no response to that statement. It hadn't happened exactly like that, of course. The drow war was far more an accident of chance than of anything Wulfgar had done. But still, the words were true enough, at least from Berkthgar's stilted perspective.
"And before that, Wulfgar's course led the tribes to war in helping to reclaim the throne for your ungrateful friend," Berkthgar pressed.
Drizzt glared hard at Berkthgar. Again the man's words were true, if stilted, and the drow realized that there was no practical response he could offer to sway Berkthgar.
They both noticed then that the speck on the tundra was larger now as Kierstaad approached.
"We have found the clean air of the tundra again," Berkthgar proclaimed before the lad arrived. "We have returned to the old ways, the better ways, and those do not allow for friendship with drow elves."
"Berkthgar forgets much," Drizzt replied.
"Berkthgar remembers much," the giant barbarian answered, and walked away.
"You would do well to consider the good that Wulfgar did for your people," Drizzt called after him. "Perhaps Settlestone was not
the place for the tribe, but Icewind Dale is an unforgiving land, a land where allies are the most valuable assets for any man."
Berkthgar didn't slow. He came up to Kierstaad and walked right past the young man. Kierstaad turned and watched him for a short time, the young man quickly deciphering what had just happened. Then Kierstaad turned back to Drizzt and, recognizing the drow, sprinted over to stand before him.
"Well met, Kierstaad," Drizzt said. "The years have done you well."
Kierstaad straightened a bit at that remark, thrilled to have Drizzt Do'Urden say anything complimentary to him. Kierstaad was just a boy of twelve when Drizzt left Mithril Hall, and so he did not know the drow very well. He knew of Drizzt, though, the legendary warrior. Once Drizzt and Catti-brie had come to Hengorot, the mead hall in Settlestone, and Drizzt had leaped upon the table, giving a speech that called for a strengthened alliance between the dwarves and the barbarians. By all the old ways that Berkthgar so often spoke of, no drow elf should have been allowed in Hengorot, and certainly none would have been shown any respect. But the mead hall showed respect to Drizzt Do'Urden that day, a testament to the drow's battle prowess.
Kierstaad could not forget, too, the stories his father had told him of Drizzt. In one particularly vicious battle with the folk of Ten-Towns, the barbarian warriors invading Ten-Towns were badly beaten, in no small part because of Drizzt Do'Urden. After that fight, the ranks of the barbarians were greatly diminished. With winter coming on, it seemed that many hardships would befall those who had survived the war, particularly the very young and the very old, for there simply were not enough hunters left alive to provide for all.