Homeland - Chapter Twenty-Two

[kalinara]

Last time both Drizzt and Zaknafein proved their kinship, yet again, by angsting about how the other one is clearly evil and they'll be fighting a duel in the next few days. Jokes aside, that's a pretty no-win situation.



We start with gnomes. Specifically "svifnebli" or deep gnomes, who are "neither kind nor evil", but somehow managing to survive and thrive in the Underdark. We're told some dude with the particularly gnomish name of Belwar Dissengulp is leading a mining expedition. But there is peril: some twenty thousand drow elves live five miles away.

...really guys? Really? I mean, okay, fine, treasure is awesome. But there's a city of evil elves in WALKING distance. They are going to kill you.

--

And indeed, we switch scenes to the patrol group. Drizzt is reporting on the gnomes, and okay, this is pretty hilarious:

“Gnomes are not to be taken lightly,” Dinin replied. “They are wicked and powerful—”

“As wicked as surface elves?” Drizzt had to interrupt, covering his sarcasm with false exuberance.

I can't believe I'm on the same page as Drizzt Do'Urden, but yeah, basically. I'm also snickering about "powerful". I mean, sure, a PC gnome can be powerful. But these are NPC gnomes. They're there to go splat.

Some clerics are joining up as well, so this is apparently a pretty big deal.

Poor Drizzt though is having his own traumatic issues though. He's not over what happened on the surface and he doesn't particularly want to see it happen again. He thinks about options: leading the group astray, or trying to contact the gnomes privately and warn them.

He realizes these plans are absurd, though. Yeah, these idiots are five miles out of your city. They're fucked.

But at least:

Masoj Hun’ett appeared then and made everything better.

“Guenhwyvar!” the young wizard called, and the great panther came bounding. Masoj left the cat beside Drizzt and headed back toward his place in the line.

Guenhwyvar could no more hide its elation at seeing Drizzt than Drizzt could contain his own smile. With the interruption of the surface raid, and his time back home, he hadn’t seen Guenhwyvar in more than a month. Guenhwyvar thumped against Drizzt’s side as it passed, nearly knocking the slender drow from his feet. Drizzt responded with a heavy pat, vigorously rubbing a hand over the cat’s ear.

They both turned back together, suddenly conscious of the unhappy glare boring into them. There stood Masoj, arms crossed over his chest and a visible scowl heating up his face.

Drizzt gets to see his true love. We're still in that phase of the novels where Guen has to use it/its pronouns, but she's a lady at heart.

Masoj is jealous and tells himself that he won't use Guen to kill Drizzt. He'll do it himself. Drizzt sees the reaction and actually has a moment of sensitivity:

Drizzt wondered if jealousy prompted that scowl. Jealousy of Drizzt and the cat, or of everything in general? Masoj had been left behind when Drizzt had gone to the surface. Masoj had been no more than a spectator when the victorious raiding party returned in glory. Drizzt backed away from Guenhwyvar, sensitive to the wizard’s pain.

Good for him.

But Drizzt and Guen still patrol together, and it's quite nice. Eventually, he hears the rhythmic tapping of pick and hammer. He alerts Dinin:

Only a moment later, Drizzt looked upon svirfnebli gnomes for the very first time. Two guards stood barely twenty feet away, chest-high to a drow and hairless, with skin strangely akin to the stone in both texture and heat radiations. The gnomes’ eyes glowed brightly in the telltale red of infravision. One glance at those eyes reminded Drizzt and Dinin that deep gnomes were as much at home in the darkness as were the drow, and they both prudently ducked behind a rocky outcropping in the tunnel.

There's some discussion of tactics, and Drizzt proves that while he may be becoming more sensitive, he hasn't gotten any smarter:

“Might we parley with the gnomes?” Drizzt’s hands asked in reply, almost subconsciously. He recognized the expression spreading across Dinin’s face, but knew that he had already plunged in. “Send them away without conflict?”

Dinin grabbed Drizzt by the front of his piwafwi and pulled him close, too close, to that terrible scowl. “I will forget that you asked that question,” he whispered, and he dropped Drizzt back to the stone, considering the issue closed.

Anyway, Drizzt is ordered to start the attack, and get to the gnome leader, as he's the key to their strength. Drizzt is confused but goes with it, even though he thinks the instructions seem a little suicidal. He gets to take Guen along, at least.

The fighting starts. The gnomes are actually stronger than they look, but not really a match. Drizzt, haunted by memories, makes sure that he knocks them down rather than kills them.

Then it's Belwar-the-gnome-leader's turn to use some cool magic: he summons an earth elemental. This freaks out Masoj, who vanishes. But hey, it means Drizzt gets a cool fight against something he doesn't have to angst about killing. Woot.

And it IS a cool fight. Drizzt eventually gets an assist from Guen (and Masoj's outrage betrays that he's still around). Then, something kind of cool happens, when Guen and the elemental both sink into the stone.

Belwar, for his part, has a pretty awesome moment:

Even though the gnome magic managed to keep the dark elves somewhat confused, Belwar Dissengulp grew frightened. His elemental, his strongest magic and only hope, was taking too long with the single drow warrior far back in the main chamber. The burrow-warden wanted the monster by his side when the main combat began. He ordered his forces into tight defensive formations, hoping that they could hold out.

Then the drow warriors, detained no more by gnomish tricks, were upon them, and fury stole Belwar’s fear. He lashed out with his heavy pickaxe, smiling grimly as he felt the mighty weapon bite into drow flesh.

I like you, poor doomed gnome dude.

Anyway, the elemental pops back out of the stone, while a "broken mist that was the great panther, his dearest companion" breaks apart as it hits the floor. Aw. We know that Guen will be fine of course, but Drizzt thinks he lost his only friend. So now he's pissed.

And of course, pissed off Drizzt is badass:

The quickness of his move surprised the elemental, and the ensuing flurry of swordplay took Masoj’s breath away. The wizard had never seen such grace in battle, such fluidity of motion. Drizzt climbed up and down the elemental’s body, hacking and slashing, digging the points of his weapons home and flicking off pieces of the monster’s stone skin.

The elemental howled its avalanche howl and spun in circles, trying to catch up to Drizzt and squash him once and for all. Blind anger brought new levels of expertise to the magnificent young swordsman, though, and the elemental caught nothing but air or its own stony body under its heavy slaps.

Masoj finds himself wondering if Drizzt might actually be able to defeat the thing. He also realizes that right at this moment, there are no witnesses. Not even Guen. So it's the perfect time.

Drizzt had the elemental lurching to one side, nearly beaten, when the bolt roared in, a blast of lightning that blinded the young drow and sent him flying into the chamber’s back wall. Drizzt watched the twitch of his hands, the wild dance of his stark white hair before his unmoving eyes. He felt nothing—no pain, no reviving draw of air into his lungs—and heard nothing, as if his life force had been some how suspended.

The attack makes Masoj visible, which is mistake one. Mistake two is in waiting for Drizzt to regain his senses. (Masoj thought the death was too painless). The elemental ends up grabbing him instead, which saves Drizzt's life, giving him the chance to split the elemental's head in half.

Masoj, on the other hand, is waist deep in stone. Oops. Fortunately, he hadn't gloated outloud, so while Drizzt may suspect that Masoj aimed his bolt at him rather than the elemental, he can't be sure. Masoj explains that he's kind of trapped in a gate between the Material Plane and the Plane of Earth. It's not comfortable.

Drizzt realizes Guen might be alive, and he takes the statuette from Masoj to inspect it. It's okay. Masoj yells at him to give it back, and Drizzt does, because he's a dimwit. He's about to go get clerics to help Masoj, when the "rock-hard fist of Belwar Dissengulp" slams into his head.

Oops. But go gnome-dude!

With the cliff-hanger, the chapter ends.