He shuddered as he considered the brutal death of his lost drow friend, the priestess Kaer’lic. Obould had bitten out her throat.
We can defeat him, Khazid’hea interrupted. You can slay Obould and take his armies as your own. His kingdom will be yours!
Tos’un had to work hard to stop himself from laughing out loud, and his incredulity served as a calming blanket over the excited sword. With or without Khazid’hea, there was no way Tos’un Armgo would willingly do battle with the powerful orc king.
The drow considered the road to the Underdark again. He remembered the way, but would it be possible for him to battle back to Menzoberranzan? The mere thought of the journey had him shuddering yet again.
That left him with the elves. The hated surface elves, the traditional enemies of his people. Might he really find a place among them? He wanted to kill them, every one, almost as badly as did his always-hungry sword, but he knew that acting on such an impulse would leave him without any options at all.
Is it possible that I will find my place among them? he asked the sword. Might Tos’un become the next Drizzt Do’Urden, a rogue from the Underdark living in peace among the surface races?
The sword didn’t reply, but the drow sensed that it was not amused. So Tos’un let his own thoughts follow that unlikely course. What might his life be like if he played along with the surface elves? He eyed a female as he wondered, and thought that bedding her might not be a bad thing. And after all, among the surface elves, unlike in his own matriarchal society, he would not be limited by his gender.
But would he always be limited by his ebon skin?
Drizzt wasn’t, he reminded himself. From everything he had learned over the past days, Tos’un knew that Drizzt lived quite well not only with the surface elves but with dwarves as well.
Could it be that Drizzt Do’Urden has created a path that I might similarly follow?
You hate these elves, Khazid’hea replied. I can taste your venom.
But that does not mean that I cannot accept their hospitality, for my own sake and not for theirs.
Will you stop fighting?
Again Tos’un nearly laughed out loud, for he understood that the only thing Khazid’hea cared about was wetting its magnificent blade with fresh blood.
With them, I will slaughter Obould’s ugly kin, he promised, and the sword seemed to calm.
And if I hunger for an elf’s blood?
In time, Tos’un replied. When I grow tired of them, or when I find another more promising road.…
It was all new, of course, and all speculative. The drow couldn’t be certain of anything just then, nor was he working from any position of power that offered him true choices. But the inner dialogue and the possibilities he saw before him were not unpleasant. For the time being, that was enough.
Drizzt stood, hands on hips, staring in disbelief at the signpost:
BEWARE! HALT!
The Kingdom of Many-Arrows
Enter on word of King Obould
Or enter and die!
It was written in many languages, including Elvish and Common, and its seemingly simple message conveyed so much more to Drizzt and Innovindil. They had spent a month or more traversing the wintry terrain to return to that spot, the same trail on which they had seen the orcs constructing a formidable and refined gate. That gate, which they had already carefully observed some fifty feet farther along the path to the north, showed design and integrity that would make a dwarf engineer proud.
“They have not left. Their cohesion remains,” Drizzt stated.
“And they proclaim their king as Obould, and their kingdom takes his surname,” Innovindil added. “It would seem that the unusual orc’s vision outlasted his breath.”
Drizzt shook his head, though he had no practical answers against the obvious observation. Still, it didn’t make sense to him, for it was not the way of the orc.
After a long while, Innovindil said, “Come, the night will be colder and a storm is brewing. Let us be on our way.”
Drizzt glanced back at her and nodded, though his thoughts were still focused on that sign and its implications.
“We can make Mithral Hall long before sunset,” he asked.
“I wish to cross the Surbrin,” Innovindil replied, and as she spoke she led Drizzt’s gaze to the form of Ellifain strapped over Sunset’s back, “to the Moonwood first, if you would agree.”
With the weather holding and the sun still bright, though black clouds gathered in the northeast, they flew through Keeper’s Dale and past the western door of King Bruenor’s domain. Both of them took comfort in seeing that the gates remained solid and closed.
They crossed around the southern side of the main mountain of the dwarven homeland, then past the wall and bridge that had been built east of the complex. Several dwarf sentries spotted them and recognized them after a moment of apparent panic. Drizzt returned their waves and heard his name shouted from below.
Over the great river, partially covered in ice and its steel gray waters flowing swiftly and angrily, they set down, their shadows long before them.
The land was secure. Obould’s minions had not pressed their attack, and predictably, as their campfire flared in the dark of night, the snow beginning to fall, they were visited by a patrol of elves, Innovindil’s own people scouting the southern reaches of their domain.
There was much rejoicing and welcoming. The elves joined in song and dance, and Drizzt went along with it all, his smile genuine.
The storm grew stronger, the wind howling, but the troupe, nestled in the embrace of a thick stand of pines, were not deterred in their celebration, their joy at the return of Innovindil, and their somber satisfaction that poor Ellifain had come home.
Soon after, Innovindil recounted the journey to her kin, telling them of her disappointment and surprise to see that the orcs had not gone home to their dark holes after the fall of King Obould.
“But Obould is not dead,” one of the elves replied, and Innovindil and her drow companion sat intrigued and quiet.
Another elf stepped forward to explain, “We have found a kin of yours, Drizzt Do’Urden, striking at the orcs much as you once did. His name is Tos’un.”
Drizzt felt as if the wind, diminished as it was through the thick boughs of the pines, might just blow him over. He had killed two other dark elves in the fight with Obould’s invading army, and had seen at least two more in his personal battle. In fact, one of those drow, a priestess, had brought forth a magical earthquake that had sent both Drizzt and the orc king tumbling, Drizzt, with good fortune, to a ledge not far below, and Obould, so Drizzt had thought, into a deep ravine where he surely would have met his demise. Might this Tos’un be one of those who had watched Drizzt’s battle with the orc king?
“Obould is alive,” the elf said again. “He walked from the carnage of the landslide.”
Drizzt didn’t think it possible, but given what he had seen of the orc army, could he truly deny the claim?
“Where is this Tos’un?” he asked, his voice no more than a whisper.
“Across the Surbrin to the north, far from here,” the elf explained. “He fights beside Albondiel and his patrol, and fights well by all reports.”
“You have become accepting,” Drizzt remarked.
“We have been given good reason.”
Drizzt was hardly convinced.
He is in the Moonwood, Khazid’hea reminded Tos’un one brilliant and brutally cold morning.