Eight days had done nothing to ease the pain in Tephanis's foot. The sprite ambled about as best he could, but whenever he broke into a sprint, he inevitably veered to one side and more often than not crashed into a bush or, worse, the unbending trunk of a tree.
"Will-you-please-quit-growling-at-me, stupid-dog!" Tephanis snapped at the yellow canine he had been with since the day after the battle. Neither had become comfortable around the other. Tephanis often lamented that this ugly mutt was in no way akin to Caroak.
But Caroak was dead; the quickling had found the winter wolf's torn body. Another companion gone, and now the sprite was alone again. "Alone-except-for-you, stupid-dog!" he lamented.
The dog bared its teeth and growled.
Tephanis wanted to slice its throat, wanted to run up and down the length of the mangy animal, cutting and slashing at every inch. He saw the sun riding low in the sky, though, and knew that the beast might soon prove valuable.
"Time-for-me-to-go!" the quickling spouted. Faster than the dog could react, Tephanis darted by it, grabbed at the rope he had hung about the dog's neck, and zipped three complete circuits of a nearby tree. The dog went after him, but Tephanis easily kept out of its reach until the leash snapped taut, flipping the dog right over. "Be-back-soon, you-stupid-thing!"
Tephanis sped along the mountain paths, knowing that this night might be his last chance. The lights of Maldobar burned in the far distance, but it was a different light, a campfire, that guided the quickling. He came upon the small camp just a few minutes later, glad to see that the elf was not around.
He found Roddy McGristle sitting at the base of a huge tree, his arms pulled behind him and tied at the wrists around the trunk. The mountain man seemed a wretched thing - as wretched as the dog - but Tephanis was out of options. Ulgulu and Kempfana were dead, Caroak was dead, and Graul, after the disaster at the grove, had actually placed a bounty on the quickling's head.
That left only Roddy - not much of a choice, but Tephanis had no desire to survive on his own ever again. He sped, unnoticed, to the back of the tree and whispered in the mountain man's ear. "You-will-be-in-Maldobar-tomorrow."
Roddy froze at the unexpected, squeaky voice.
"You will be in Maldobar tomorrow," Tephanis said again, as slowly as he could.
"Go away," Roddy growled at him, thinking that the sprite was teasing him.
"You-should-be-kinder-to-me, oh-you-should!" Tephanis snapped right back. "The-elf-means-to-imprison-you, you-know. For-crimes-against-the-blind-ranger."
"Shut yer mouth," McGristle growled, louder than he had intended.
"What are you about?" came Kellindil's call from not so far away.
"There, you-have-done-it-now, silly-man!" Tephanis whispered.
"I told ye to go away!" Roddy replied.
"I-might, and-then-where-would-you-be? In-prison?" Tephanis said angrily. "I-can-help-you-now, if-you-want-my-help."
Roddy was beginning to understand. "Untie my hands," he ordered.
"They-already-are-untied," Tephanis replied, and Roddy found the sprite's words to be true. He started to rise but changed his mind abruptly as Kellindil entered the camp.
"Keep-still," Tephanis advised. "I-will-distract-your-captor."
Tephanis had moved as he spoke the words and Roddy heard only an unintelligible murmur. He kept his hands behind him, though, seeing no other course available with the heavily armed elf approaching.
"Our last night on the road," Kellindil remarked, dropping by the fire the coney he had shot for a meal. He moved in front of Roddy and bent low. "I will send for Lady Falconhand once we have arrived in Maldobar," he said. "She names Montolio DeBrouchee as a friend and will be interested to learn of the events in the grove."
"What do ye know?" Roddy spat at him. "The ranger was a friend o' mine, too!"
"If you are a friend of orc king Graul, then you are no friend of the ranger in the grove," Kellindil retorted.
Roddy had no immediate rebuttal, but Tephanis supplied one. A buzzing noise came from behind the elf and Kellindil, dropping a hand to his sword, spun about.
"What manner of being are you?" he asked the quickling, his eyes wide in amazement.
Kellindil never learned the answer, for Roddy came up suddenly behind him and slammed him to the ground. Kellindil was a seasoned fighter, but in close he was no match for the sheer brawn of Roddy McGristle. Roddy's huge and dirty hands closed on the slender elf's throat.
"I-have-your-dog," Tephanis said to Roddy when the foul business was done. "Tied-it-to-a-tree."
"Who are ye?" Roddy asked, trying to hide his elation, both for his freedom and for the knowledge that his dog still lived. "And what do ye want with me?"
"I-am-a-little-thing, you-can-see-that-to-be-true," Tephanis explained. "Like-keeping-big-friends."
Roddy considered the offer for a moment. "Well, ye've earned it," he said with a laugh. He found Bleeder, his trusted axe, among the dead elf's belongings and rose up huge and grim-faced. "Come on then, let's get back to the mountains. I've a drow to deal with."
A sour expression crossed the quickling's delicate features, but Tephanis hid it before Roddy could notice. Tephanis had no desire to go anywhere near the blind ranger's grove. Aside from the fact that the orc king had placed a bounty on his head, he knew that the other elves might get suspicious if Roddy showed up without Kellindil. More than that, Tephanis found the pain in his head and foot even more acute at the mere thought of facing the dark elf again.
"No!" the sprite blurted. Roddy, not used to being disobeyed, eyed him dangerously.
"No-need," Tephanis lied. "The-drow-is-dead, killed-by-a-worg."
Roddy didn't seem convinced.
"I-led-you-to-the-drow-once," Tephanis reminded him.
Truly Roddy was disappointed, but he no longer doubted the quickling. If it hadn't been for Tephanis, Roddy knew, he never would have located Drizzt. He would be more than a hundred miles away, sniffing around Morueme's Cave and spending all of his gold on dragon lies. "What about the blind ranger?" Roddy asked.
"He-lives, but-let-him-live," Tephanis replied. "Many-powerful-friends-have-joined-him." He led Roddy's gaze to Kellindil's body. "Elves, many-elves."
Roddy nodded his assent. He had no real grudge against Mooshie and had no desire to face Kellindil's kin.
They buried Kellindil and all of the supplies they couldn't take with them, found Roddy's dog, and set out later that same night for the wide lands to the west.
* * *
Back at Mooshie's grove, the summer passed peacefully and productively, with Drizzt coming into the ways and methods of a ranger even more easily than optimistic Montolio had believed. Drizzt learned the name for every tree or bush in the region, and every animal, and more importantly, he learned how to learn, how to observe the clues that Mielikki gave him. When he came upon an animal that he had not encountered before, he found that simply by watching its movements and actions he could quickly discern its intent demeanor, and mood.
"Go and feel its coat," Montolio whispered to him one day in the gray and blustery twilight. The old ranger pointed across a field, to the tree line and the white flicking of a deer's tail. Even in the dim light, Drizzt had trouble seeing the deer, but he sensed its presence, as Montolio obviously had.
"Will it let me?" Drizzt whispered back. Montolio smiled and shrugged.
Drizzt crept out silently and carefully, following the shadows along the edge of the meadow. He chose a northern, downwind approach, but to get north of the deer, he had to come around from the east. He knew his error when he was still two dozen yards from the deer. It lifted its head suddenly, sniffed, and flicked its white tail.
Drizzt froze and waited for a long moment while the deer resumed its grazing. The skittish creature was on the alert now, and as soon as Drizzt took another measured step, the deer bolted away.
But not before Montolio, taking the southern approach, had gotten close enough to pat its rump as it ran past.
Drizzt blinked in amazement. "The wind favored me!" he protested to the smug ranger.
Montolio shook his head. "Only over the last twenty yards, when you came north of the deer," he explained. "West was better than east until then."
"But you could not get north of the deer from the west," Drizzt said.
"I did not have to," Montolio replied. "There is a high bluff back there," he pointed to the south. "It cuts the wind at this angle - swirls it back around."
"I did not know."
"You have to know," Montolio said lightly. "That is the trick of it. You have to see as a bird might and look down upon all the region before you choose your course."
"I have not learned to fly," Drizzt replied sarcastically.
"Nor have I!" roared the old ranger. "Look above you."
Drizzt squinted as he turned his eyes to the gray sky. He made out a solitary form, gliding easily with great wings held wide to catch the breeze.
"A hawk," the drow said.
"Rode the breeze from the south," Montolio explained, "then banked west on the breaking currents around the bluff. If you had observed its flight, you might have suspected the change in terrain."
"That is impossible," Drizzt said helplessly.
"Is it?" Montolio asked, and he started away - to hide his smile. Of course the drow was correct; one could not tell the topography of the terrain by the flight patterns of a hawk. Montolio had learned of the shifting wind from a certain sneaky owl who had slipped in at the ranger's bidding right after Drizzt had started out across the meadow, but Drizzt didn't have to know that. Let the drow consider the fib for a while, the old ranger decided. The contemplation, recounting all he had learned, would be a valuable lesson.
"Hooter told you," Drizzt said a half-hour later, on the trail back to the grove. "Hooter told you of the wind and told you of the hawk."
"You seem sure of yourself."
"I am," Drizzt said firmly. "The hawk did not cry - I have become aware enough to know that. You could not see the bird, and I know that you did not hear the rush of wind over its wings, whatever you may say!"
Montolio's laughter brought a smile of confirmation to the drow's face.
"You have done well this day," the old ranger said.
"I did not get near the deer," Drizzt reminded him.
"That was not the test," Montolio replied. "You trusted in your knowledge to dispute my claims. You are sure of the lessons you have learned. Now hear some more. Let me tell you a few tricks when approaching a skittish deer."
They talked all the way back to the grove and far into the night after that. Drizzt listened eagerly, absorbing every word as he was let in on still more of the world's wondrous secrets.
* * *
A week later, in a different field, Drizzt placed one hand on the rump of a doe, the other on the rump of its speckle-coated fawn. Both animals lit out at the unexpected touch, but Montolio "saw" Drizzt's smile from a hundred yards away.
Drizzt's lessons were far from complete when the summer waned, but Montolio no longer spent much time instructing the drow. Drizzt had learned enough to go out and learn on his own, listening and watching the quiet voices and subtle signs of the trees and the animals. So caught up was Drizzt in his unending revelations that he hardly noticed the profound changes in Montolio. The ranger felt much older now. His back would hardly straighten on chill mornings and his hands often went numb. Montolio remained stoic about it all, hardly one for self-pity and hardly lamenting what he knew was to come.
He had lived long and fully, had accomplished much, and had experienced life more vividly than most men ever would.
"What are your plans," he said unexpectedly to Drizzt one night as they ate their dinner, a vegetable stew that Drizzt had concocted.
The question hit Drizzt hard. He had no plans beyond the present, and why should he, with life so easy and enjoyable - more so than it had ever been for the beleaguered drow renegade? Drizzt really didn't want to think about the question, so he threw a biscuit at Guenhwyvar to change the subject. The panther was getting a bit too comfortable on Drizzt's bedroll, wrapping up in the blankets to the point where Drizzt worried that the only way to get Guenhwyvar out of the tangle would be to send it back to the astral plane.
Montolio was persistent. "What are your plans, Drizzt Do'Urden?" the old ranger said again firmly. "Where and how will you live?"
"Are you throwing me out?" Drizzt asked.
"Of course not."
"Then I will live with you," Drizzt replied calmly.
"I mean after," Montolio said, growing flustered.
"After what?" Drizzt asked, thinking that Mooshie knew something he did not.
Montolio's laughter mocked his suspicions. "I am an old man," the ranger explained, "and you are a young elf. I am older than you, but even if I were a babe, your years would far outdistance my own. Where will Drizzt Do'Urden go when Montolio DeBrouchee is no more?"
Drizzt turned away. "I do not... " he began tentatively. "I will stay here."
"No," Montolio replied soberly. "You have much more before you than this, I hope. This life would not do."
"It has suited you," Drizzt snapped back, more forcefully than he had intended.
"For five years," Montolio said calmly, taking no offense. "Five years after a life of adventure and excitement."
"My life has not been so quiet," Drizzt reminded him.
"But you are still a child," Montolio said. "Five years is not five hundred, and five hundred is what you have remaining. Promise me now that you will reconsider your course when I am no more. There is a wide world out there, my friend, full of pain, but filled with joy as well. The former keeps you on the path of growth, and the latter makes the journey tolerable.
"Promise me now," Montolio said, "that when Mooshie is no more, Drizzt will go and find his place."
Drizzt wanted to argue, to ask the ranger how he was so certain that this grove was not Drizzt's 'place.' A mental scale dipped and leveled, then dipped again within Drizzt at that moment. He weighed the memories of Maldobar, the farmers' deaths, and all the memories before that of the trials he had faced and the evils that had so persistently followed him. Against this, Drizzt considered his heartfelt desire to go back out in the world. How many other Mooshies might he find? How many friends? And how empty would be this grove when he and Guenhwyvar had it to themselves?
Montolio accepted the silence, knowing the drow's confusion. "Promise me that when the time is upon you, you will at least consider what I have said."
Trusting in Drizzt, Montolio did not have to see his friend's affirming nod.
* * *
The first snow came early that year, just a light dusting from broken clouds that played hide-and-seek with a full moon. Drizzt, out with Guenhwyvar, reveled in the seasonal change, enjoyed the reaffirmation of the endless cycle. He was in high spirits when he bounded back to the grove, shaking the snow from the thick pine branches as he picked his way in.
The campfire burned low; Hooter sat still on a low branch and even the wind seemed not to make a sound. Drizzt looked to Guenhwyvar for some explanation, but the panther only sat by the fire, somber and still.
Dread is a strange emotion, a culmination of too-subtle clues that brings as much confusion as fear.
"Mooshie?" Drizzt called softly, approaching the old ranger's den. He pushed aside the blanket and used it to screen the light from the embers of the dying campfire, letting his eyes slip into the infrared spectrum.
He remained there for a very long time, watching the last wisps of heat depart from the ranger's body. But if Mooshie was cold, his contented smile emanated warmth.
Drizzt fought back many tears over the next few days, but whenever he remembered that last smile, the final peace that had come over the aged man, he reminded himself that the tears were for his own loss and not for Mooshie.
Drizzt buried the ranger in a cairn beside the grove, then spent the winter quietly, tending to his daily chores and wondering. Hooter came by less and less frequently, and on one occasion the departing look Hooter cast at Drizzt told the drow beyond doubt that the owl would never return to the grove.
* * *
In the spring, Drizzt came to understand Hooter's sentiments. For more than a decade, he had been searching for a home, and he had found one with Montolio. But with the ranger gone, the grove no longer seemed so hospitable. This was Mooshie's place, not Drizzt's.
"As I promised," Drizzt mumbled one morning. Montolio had asked him to consider his course carefully when the ranger was no more, and Drizzt now held to his word. He had become comfortable in the grove and was still accepted here, but the grove was no longer his home. His home was out there, he knew, out in that wide world that Montolio had assured him was "full of pain, but filled with joy as well."
Drizzt packed a few items - practical supplies and some of the ranger's more interesting books - belted on his scimitars, and slung the longbow over his shoulder. Then he took a final walk around the grove, viewing one last time the rope bridges, the armory, the brandy barrel and trough, the tree root where he had stopped the charging giant, the sheltered run where Mooshie had made his stand. He called Guenhwyvar, and the panther understood as soon as it arrived.
They never looked back as they moved down the mountain trail, toward the wide world of pains and joys.
