“I am a courier of news, and have come with a request, King Bruenor,” the elf explained, and he gave another respectful and appreciative bow. “Others will journey here from the Moonwood to your call, of course, but my own road is back through your eastern door no later than dawn tomorrow.” Again he looked Drizzt in the eye. “I hope I will not be alone.”

Drizzt nodded his agreement to go out on the hunt before he even turned to Catti-brie. He knew that she would not deny him that.

The couple were alone in their room soon after, and Drizzt began to fill his backpack.

“You’re going after Tos’un,” Catti-brie remarked, but did not ask.

“Have I a choice?”

“No. I only wish that I were well enough to go with you.”

Drizzt paused in his packing and turned to regard her. “In Menzoberranzan, they say, Aspis tu drow bed n’tuth drow. ‘Only a drow can hunt a drow.’”

“Then hunt well,” said Catti-brie, and she moved to the side wardrobe to aid Drizzt in his preparations. She seemed not upset with him in the least, which was why she caught Drizzt completely off his guard when she quietly asked, “Would you have married Innovindil when I am gone?”

Drizzt froze, and slowly mustered the courage to turn and look at Catti-brie. She wore a slight smile and seemed quite at ease and comfortable. She moved to their bed and sat on the edge, and motioned for Drizzt to join her.

“Would you have?” she asked again as he approached. “Innovindil was very beautiful, in body and in mind.”

“It is not something I think about,” said Drizzt.

Catti-brie’s smile grew wider. “I know,” she assured him. “But I am asking you to consider it now. Could you have loved her?”

Drizzt thought about it for a few moments then admitted, “I do not know.”

“And you never wondered about it at all?”

Drizzt’s thoughts went back to a moment he had shared with Innovindil when the two of them were out alone among the orc lines. Innovindil had nearly seduced him, though only to let him see more clearly his feelings for Catti-brie, whom he had thought dead at the time.

“You could have loved her, I think,” Catti-brie said.

“You may well be right,” he said.

“Do you think she thought of you in her last moments?”

Drizzt’s eyes widened in shock at the blunt question, but Catti-brie didn’t back down.

“She thought of Tarathiel, likely, and what was,” he answered.

“Or of Drizzt and what might have been.”

Drizzt shook his head. “She would not have looked there. Not then. Likely her every thought was for Sunset. To be an elf is to find the moment, the here and now. To revel in what is with knowledge and acceptance that what will be, will be, no matter the hopes and plans of any.”

“Innovindil would have had a fleeting moment of regret for Drizzt, and potential love lost,” Catti-brie said.

Drizzt didn’t disagree, and couldn’t, given the woman’s generous tone and expression. Catti-brie wasn’t judging him, wasn’t looking for reasons to doubt him. She confirmed that a moment later, when she laughed and put her hand up to stroke his cheek.

“You will outlive me by centuries, in all likelihood,” she explained. “I understand the implications of that, my love, and what a selfish fool I would be if I expected you to remain faithful to a memory. Nor would I want—nor do I want—that for you.”

“It doesn’t mean that we have to speak of it,” Drizzt retorted. “We know not where our roads will lead, nor which of us will outlive the other. These are dangerous times in a dangerous world.”

“I know.”

“Then is this something we should bother to discuss?”

Catti-brie shrugged, but gradually her smile dissipated and a cloud crossed her fair features.

“What is it?” Drizzt asked, and lifted his hand to turn her to face him directly.

“If the dangers do not end our time together, how will Drizzt feel, I wonder, in twenty years? Or thirty?”

The drow wore a puzzled expression.

“You will still be young and handsome, and full of life and love to give,” Catti-brie explained. “But I will be old and bent and ugly. You will stay by my side, I am sure, but what life will that be? What lust?”

It was Drizzt’s turn to laugh.

“Can you look at a human woman who has seen the turn of seventy years and think her attractive?”

“Are there not couples of humans still in love after so many years together?” Drizzt asked. “Are there not human husbands who love their wives still when seventy is a birthday passed?”

“But the husbands are not usually in the springtime of their lives.”

“You err because you pretend that it will happen overnight, in the snap of fingers,” Drizzt said. “That is far from the case, even for an elf looking upon the human lifespan. Every wrinkle is earned, my love. Day by day, we spend our time together, and the changes that come will be well earned. In your heart you know that I love you, and I have no doubt but that my love will grow with the passage of years. I know your heart, Catti-brie. You are blissfully predictable to me in some ways, never so in others. I know where your choices will be, time and again, and ever are they on the right side of justice and integrity.”

Catti-brie smiled and kissed him, but Drizzt broke it off fast and pushed her back.

“If a dragon’s fiery breath were to catch up with me, and scar my skin hideously, blind me, and keep about me a stench of burnt flesh, would Catti-brie still love me?”

“Wonderful thought,” the woman said dryly.

“Would she? Would you stand beside me?”

“Of course.”

“And if I thought otherwise, at all, then never would I have desired to be your husband. Do you not similarly trust in me?”

Catti-brie grinned and kissed him again, then pushed him on his back on the bed.

The packing could wait.

Early the next morning, Drizzt leaned over the sleeping Catti-brie and gently brushed her lips with his own. He stared at her for a long while, even while he walked from the bed to the door. He at last turned and nearly jumped back in surprise, for set against the door was Taulmaril, the Heartseeker, Catti-brie’s bow, and lying below it was her magical quiver, one that never ran out of arrows. For a moment, Drizzt stood confused, until he noticed a small note on the floor by the quiver. From a puncture in its side, he deduced that it had been pressed onto the top of the bow but had not held its perch.

He knew what it said before he ever brought it close enough to read the scribbling.

He looked back at Catti-brie once more. She couldn’t be with him in body, perhaps, but with Taulmaril in his hand, she’d be there in spirit.

Drizzt slung the bow over his shoulder then retrieved the quiver and did likewise. He looked back once more to his love then left the room without a sound.

CHAPTER 16

TOOGWIK TUK’S PARADE

The warriors of Clan Karuck paraded onto the muddy plaza centering a small orc village one rainy morning, the dreary overcast and pounding rain doing nothing to diminish the glory of their thunderous march.

“Stand and stomp!” the warriors sang in voices that resonated deeply from their massive half-ogre chests. “Smash and crush! All for the glory of One-eye Gruumsh!”

Yellow pennants flapping in the wind, waves of mud splattering with every coordinated step, the clan came on in tight and precise formation, their six flags moving, two-by-two, in near perfect synchronization. The curious onlookers couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast between the huge half-ogre, half-orcs and the scores of orcs from other tribes that had been swept up into their wake from the first villages through which Chieftain Grguch had marched.

Only one full-blooded orc marched with Grguch, a young and fiery shaman. Toogwik Tuk wasted no time as the villagers gathered. He moved out in front as Grguch halted his march.