“Until I was chased away by the murderous Obould, yes,” said Tos’un. “And into the camp of Albondiel and Sinnafain of the Moonwood.”

“Whom you betrayed,” Drizzt shouted in his face.

“From whom I escaped, though I was not their captive,” Tos’un yelled back.

“Then why did you run?”

“Because of you!” Tos’un cried. “Because of that sword I carried, who knew that Drizzt Do’Urden would never allow me to keep it, who knew that Drizzt Do’Urden would find me among the elves and strike me down for possessing a sword that I had found abandoned in the bottom of a ravine.”

“That is not why, and you know it,” said Drizzt, backing off just a step. “’Twas I who lost the sword, recall?”

As he spoke he glanced over at Khazid’hea, and an idea came to him. He wanted to believe Tos’un, as he had wanted to believe the female, Donnia, when he had captured her those months before.

He looked back at Tos’un, smiled wryly, and said, “It is all opportunity, is it not?”

“What do you mean?”

“You ally with Obould as he gains the upper hand. But he is held at bay, and you face his wrath. So you find your way to Sinnafain and Albondiel and the others and think to create new opportunities where your old ones have ended. Or to recreate the old ones, at the expense of your new ‘friends.’ Once you have gained their trust and learned their ways, you again have something to offer to the orcs, something that will perhaps bring Obould back to your side.”

“By helping Grguch? You do not understand.”

“But I shall,” Drizzt promised, moving off to the side, toward Khazid’hea. Without hesitation, he grabbed the sword by the hilt. Metal scraped and screeched as he withdrew the blade from the stone, but Drizzt didn’t hear that, for Khazid’hea already invaded his thoughts.

I had thought you lost to me.

But Drizzt wasn’t listening to any of that, had not the time for it. He forced his thoughts into the sword, demanding of Khazid’hea a summary of its time in the hands of Tos’un Armgo. He did not coddle the sword with promises that together they would find glory. He did not offer to the sword anything. He simply asked of it, Were you in the Moonwood? Have you tasted the blood of elves?

Sweet blood… Khazid’hea admitted, but with that thought came to Drizzt a sense of a time long past. And the sword had not been in the Moonwood. Of that much, the drow was almost immediately certain.

In light of Khazid’hea’s open admission of its fondness for elf blood, Drizzt considered the unlikely scenario that Tos’un could have been an integral part of the planning for that raid and yet still have remained on the western side of the Surbrin. Would Khazid’hea have allowed that participation from afar, knowing that blood was to be spilled, and particularly since Khazid’hea had been in Tos’un’s possession when he had been with the elves?

Drizzt glanced back at the captured drow and considered the relationship between Tos’un and the sword. Had Tos’un so dominated Khazid’hea?

As that very question filtered through Drizzt’s thoughts, and thus was offered to the telepathic sword, Khazid’hea’s mocking response chimed in.

Drizzt put the sword down for a few moments to let it all sink in. When he retrieved the blade, he directed his questioning toward the newcomer.

Grguch, he imparted.

A fine warrior. Fierce and powerful.

A worthy wielder for Khazid’hea? Drizzt asked.

The sword didn’t deny it.

More worthy than Obould? Drizzt silently asked.

The feeling that came back at him seemed not so favorably impressed. And yet, Drizzt knew that King Obould was as fine a warrior as any orc he had ever encountered, as fine as Drizzt himself, whom the sword had long coveted as a wielder. Though not of that elite class, Catti-brie, too, was a fine warrior, and yet Drizzt knew from his last experience with the sword that she had fallen out of Khazid’hea’s favor, as she opted to use her bow far too often for Khazid’hea’s ego.

A long time passed before Drizzt set the sword down once again, and he was left with the impression that the ever-bloodthirsty Khazid’hea clearly favored Grguch over Obould, and just for the reasons that Tos’un had said. Obould was not pressing for conquest and battle.

Drizzt looked at Tos’un, who rested as comfortably as could be expected given his awkward position tied to the tree. Drizzt could not dismiss the plausibility of Tos’un’s claims, all of them, and perhaps, whether through heartfelt emotion or simple opportunity, Tos’un was not now an enemy to him and his allies.

But after his experiences with Donnia Soldou—indeed, after his experiences with his own race from the earliest moments of his conscious life, Drizzt Do’Urden wasn’t about to take that chance.

The sun had long set, the dark night made murkier by a fog that curled up from the softening snow. Into that mist disappeared Bruenor, Hralien, Regis, Thibble dorf Pwent, Torgar Hammerstriker and Shingles McRuff of Mirabar, and Cordio the priest.

On the other side of the ridgeline, behind the wall where Bruenor’s dwarves and Alustriel’s wizards worked vigilantly, Catti-brie watched the receding group with a heavy heart.

“I should be going with them,” she said.

“You cannot,” said her companion, Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon. The tall woman moved nearer to Catti-brie and put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Your leg will heal.”

Catti-brie looked up at her, for Alustriel was nearly half a foot taller than she.

“Perhaps this is a sign that you should consider my offer,” Alustriel said.

“To train in wizardry? Am I not too old to begin such an endeavor?”

Alustriel laughed dismissively at the absurd question. “You will take to it naturally, even though you were raised by the magically inept dwarves.”

Catti-brie considered her words for a moment, but soon turned her attention to the view beyond the wall, where the fog had swallowed her father and friends. “I had thought that you would walk beside my father, as he bade,” she said, and glanced over at the Lady of Silverymoon.

“As you could not, neither could I,” Alustriel replied. “My position prevented me from it as fully as did your wounded leg.”

“You do not agree with Bruenor’s goal? You would side with Obould?”

“Surely not,” said Alustriel. “But it is not my place to interject Silverymoon in a war.”

“You did exactly that when you and your Knights in Silver rescued the wandering Nesmians.”

“Our treaties with Nesmé demanded no less,” Alustriel explained. “They were under attack and running for their lives. Small friends we would be if we did not come to them in their time of need.”

“Bruenor sees it just that way right now,” said Catti-brie.

“Indeed he does,” Alustriel admitted.

“So he plans to eradicate the threat. To decapitate the orc army and send them scattering.”

“And I hope and pray that he succeeds. To have the orcs gone is a goal agreed upon by all the folk of the Silver Marches, of course. But it is not my place to bring Silverymoon into this provocative attack. My council has determined that our posture is to remain defensive, and I am bound to abide by their edicts.”

Catti-brie shook her head and did not hide her disgusted look. “You act as if we are in a time of peace, and Bruenor is breaking that peace,” she said. “Does a needed pause in the war because of the winter’s snows cancel what has gone before?”

Alustriel hugged the angry woman a bit tighter. “It is not the way any of us wish it to be,” she said. “But the council of Silverymoon has determined that Obould has stopped his march, and we must accept that.”

“Mithral Hall was just attacked,” Catti-brie reminded. “Are we to sit back and let them strike at us again and again?”

Alustriel’s pause showed that she had no answer for that. “I cannot go after Obould now,” she said. “In my role as leader of Silverymoon, I am bound by the decisions of the council. I wish Bruenor well. I hope with all my heart and soul that he succeeds and that the orcs are chased back to their holes.”