"You got us through!" Brother Herschel cried. All of the friars except Jankin threw a great hug on Drizzt as soon as the drow caught up to them in a rocky vale west of the dragon lair's entrance.

"If ever there is a way that we can repay you... !"

Drizzt emptied his pockets in response, and five sets of eager eyes widened as gold trinkets and baubles rolled forth, glittering in the afternoon sun. One gem in particular, a two-inch ruby, promised wealth beyond anything the friars had ever known.

"For you," Drizzt explained. "All of it. I have no need of treasures."

The friars looked about guiltily, none of them willing to reveal the booty stored in his own pockets. "Perhaps you should keep a bit," Mateus offered, "if you still plan to strike out on your own."

"I do," Drizzt said firmly.

"You cannot stay here," reasoned Mateus. "Where will you go?"

Drizzt really hadn't given it much thought. All he really knew was that his place was not among the Weeping Friars. He pondered a while, recalling the many dead-end roads he had traveled. A thought popped into his head.

"You said it," Drizzt remarked to Jankin. "You named the place a week before we entered the tunnel."

Jankin looked at him curiously, hardly remembering.

"Ten-Towns," Drizzt said. "Land of rogues, where a rogue might find his place."

"Ten-Towns?" Mateus balked. "Surely you should reconsider your course, friend. Icewind Dale is not a welcoming place, nor are the hardy killers of Ten-Towns."

"The wind is ever blowing," Jankin added with a wistful look in his dark and hollow eyes, "filled with stinging sand and an icy bite. I will go with you!"

"And the monsters!" added one of the others, slapping Jankin on the back of the head. "Tundra yeti and white bears, and fierce barbarians! No, I would not go to Ten-Towns if Hephaestus himself tried to chase me there!"

"Well the dragon might," said Herschel, glancing nervously back toward the not-so-distant lair. "There are some farmhouses nearby. Perhaps we could stay there the night and get back to the tunnel tomorrow."

"I'll not go with you," Drizzt said again. "You name Ten-Towns an unwelcoming place, but would I find any warmer reception in Mirabar?"

"We will go to the farmers this night," Mateus replied, reconsidering his words. "We will buy you a horse there, and the supplies you will need. I do not wish you to go away at all," he said, "but Ten-Towns seems a good choice - " He looked pointedly at Jankin - "for a drow. Many have found their place there. Truly it is a home for he who has none."

Drizzt understood the sincerity in the friar's voice and appreciated Mateus's graciousness. "How do I find it?" he asked.

"Follow the mountains," Mateus replied. "Keep them always at your right hand's reach. When you get around the range, you have entered Icewind Dale. Only a single peak marks the flat land north of the Spine of the World. The towns are built around it. May they be all that you hope!"

With that, the friars prepared to leave. Drizzt clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back against the valley wall. It was indeed time for his parting with the friars, he knew, but he could not deny both the guilt and loneliness that the prospect offered. The small riches they had taken from the dragon's lair would greatly change his companions' lives, would give them shelter and all the necessities, but wealth could do nothing to alter the barriers that Drizzt faced.

Ten-Towns, the land that Jankin had named a house for the homeless, a gathering ground for those who had nowhere else to go, brought the drow a measure of hope. How many times had fate kicked him? How many gates had he approached hopefully only to be turned away at the tip of a spear? This time will be different, Drizzt told himself, for if he could not find a place in the land of rogues, where then might he turn?

For the beleaguered drow, who had spent so very long running from tragedy, guilt, and prejudices he could not escape, hope was not a comfortable emotion.

* * *

Drizzt camped in a small copse that night while the friars went into the small farming village. They returned the next morning leading a fine horse, but with one of their group conspicuously absent.

"Where is Jankin?" Drizzt asked, concerned.

"Tied up in a barn," Mateus replied. "He tried to get away last night, to go back... "

"To Hephaestus," Drizzt finished for him.

"If he is still in a mind for it this day, we might just let him go," added a disgusted Herschel.

"Here is your horse," Mateus said, "if the night has not changed your mind."

"And here is a new wrap," offered Herschel. He handed Drizzt a fine, fur-lined cloak. Drizzt knew how uncharacteristically generous the friars were being, and he almost changed his mind. He could not dismiss his other needs, though, and he would not satisfy them among this group.

To display his resolve, the drow moved straight to the animal, meaning to climb right on. Drizzt had seen a horse before, but never so close. He was amazed by the beast's sheer strength, the muscles rippling along the animal's neck, and he was amazed, too, by the height of the animal's back.

He spent a moment staring into the horse's eyes, communicating his intent as best he could. Then, to everyone's shock, even Drizzt's, the horse bent low, allowing the drow to climb easily into the saddle.

"You have a way with horses," remarked Mateus. "Never did you mention that you were a skilled rider."

Drizzt only nodded and did his very best to remain in the saddle when the horse started into a trot. It took the drow many moments to figure out how to control the beast and he had circled far to the east - the wrong way - before he managed to turn about. Throughout the circuit, Drizzt tried hard to keep up his facade, and the friars, never ones for horses themselves, merely nodded and smiled.

* * *

Hours later, Drizzt was riding hard to the west, following the southern edge of the Spine of the World.

"The Weeping Friars," Roddy McGristle whispered, looking down from a stony bluff at the band as they made their way back toward Mirabar's tunnel later that same week.

"What?" Tephanis gawked, rushing from his sack to join Roddy, For the very first time, the sprite's speed proved a liability. Before he even realized what he was saying, Tephanis blurted, "It-cannot-be! The-dragon... "

Roddy's glare fell over Tephanis like the shadow of a thundercloud.

"I-mean-I-assumed... " Tephanis sputtered, but he realized that Roddy, who knew the tunnel better than he and knew, too, the sprite's ways with locks, had pretty much guessed the indiscretion.

"Ye took it on yerself to kill the drow," Roddy said calmly.

"Please, my-master," Tephanis replied. "I-did-not-mean... I-feared-for-you. The-drow-is-a-devil, I-say! I-sent-them-down-the-dragon's-tunnel. I-thought-that-you... "

"Forget it," Roddy growled. "Ye did what ye did, and no more about it. Now get in yer sack. Mighten that we can fix what ye done, if the drow's not dead."

Tephanis nodded, relieved, and zipped back into the sack. Roddy scooped it up and called his dog to his side.

"I'll get the friars talking," the bounty hunter vowed, "but first... " Roddy whipped the sack about, slamming it into the stone wall.

"Master!" came the sprite's muffled cry.

"Ye drow-stealin... " Roddy huffed, and he beat the sack mercilessly against the unyielding stone. Tephanis squirmed for the first few whacks, even managed to begin a tear with his little dagger. But then the sack darkened with wetness and the sprite struggled no more.

"Drow-stealing mutant," Roddy mumbled, tossing the gory package away. "Come on, dog. If the drow's alive, the friars'll know where to find him."

* * *

The Weeping Friars were an order dedicated to suffering, and a couple of them, particularly Jankin, had indeed suffered much in their lives. None of them, though, had ever imagined the level of cruelty they found at the hands of wild-eyed Roddy McGristle, and before an hour had passed, Roddy, too, was driving hard to the west along the southern edge of the mountain range.

* * *

The cold eastern wind filled his ears with its endless song. Drizzt had heard it every second since he had rounded the western edge of the Spine of the World and turned north and then east, into the barren stretch of land named for this wind, Icewind Dale. He accepted the mournful groan and the wind's freezing bite willingly, for to Drizzt the rush of air came as a gust of freedom.

Another symbol of that freedom, the sight of the wide sea, came as the drow rounded the mountain range. Drizzt had visited the shoreline once, on his passage to Luskan, and now he wanted to pause and go the few miles to its shores again. But the cold wind reminded him of the impending winter, and he understood the difficulty he would find in traveling the dale once the first snows had fallen.

Drizzt spotted Kelvin's Cairn, the solitary mountain on the tundra north of the great range, the first day after he had turned into the dale. He made for it anxiously, visualizing its singular peak as the marking post to the land he would call home. Tentative hope filled him whenever he focused on that mountain.

He passed several small groups, solitary wagons or a handful of men on horseback, as he neared the region of Ten-Towns along the caravan route, a southwestern approach. The sun was low in the west and dim, and Drizzt kept the cowl of his fine cloak pulled low, hiding his ebony skin. He nodded curtly as each traveler passed.

Three lakes dominated the region, along with the peak of rocky Kelvin's Cairn, which rose a thousand feet above the broken plain and was capped with snow even through the short summer. Of the ten towns that gave the area its name, only the principle city, Bryn Shander, stood apart from the lakes. It sat above the plain, on a short hill, its flag whipping defiantly against the stiff wind. The caravan route, Drizzt's trail, led to this city, the region's principle marketplace.

Drizzt could tell from the rising smoke of distant fires that several other communities were within a few miles of the city on the hill. He considered his course for a moment, wondering if he should go to one of these smaller, more secluded towns instead of continuing straight on to the principle city.

"No," the drow said firmly, dropping a hand into his pouch to feel the onyx figurine. Drizzt kicked his horse ahead, up the hill to the walled city's forbidding gates.

"Merchant?" asked one of the two guards standing bored before the iron-bound portal. "Ye're a bit late in the year for trading."

"No merchant," Drizzt replied softly, losing a good measure of his nerve now that the hour was upon him. He reached up slowly to his hood, trying to keep his trembling hand moving.

"From what town, then?" the other guard asked. Drizzt dropped his hand back, his courage deflected by the blunt question.

"From Mirabar," he answered honestly, and then, before he could stop himself and before the guards posed another distracting question, he reached up and pulled back his hood.

Four eyes popped wide and hands immediately dropped to belted swords.

"No!" Drizzt retorted suddenly. "No, please." A weariness came into both his voice and his posture that the guards could not understand. Drizzt had no strength left for senseless battles of misunderstanding. Against a goblin horde or a marauding giant, the drow's scimitars came easily into his hands, but against one who only battled him because of misperceptions, his blades weighed heavily indeed.

"I have come from Mirabar," Drizzt continued, his voice growing steadier with each syllable, "to Ten-Towns to reside in peace." He held his hands out wide, offering no threat.

The guards hardly knew how to react. Neither of them had ever seen a dark elf - though they knew beyond doubt that Drizzt was one - or knew more about the race than fireside tales of the ancient war that had split the elven peoples apart.

"Wait here," one of the guards breathed to the other, who didn't seem to appreciate the order. "I will go inform Spokesman Cassius." He banged on the iron-bound gate and slipped inside as soon as it was opened wide enough to let him through. The remaining guard eyed Drizzt unblinking, his hand never leaving his sword hilt.

"If you kill me, a hundred crossbows will cut you down," he declared, trying but utterly failing to sound confident.

"Why would I?" Drizzt asked innocently, keeping his hands wide apart and his posture unthreatening. This encounter had gone well so far, he believed. In every other village he had dared approach, those first seeing him had fled in terror or chased him with bared weapons.

The other guard returned a short time later with a small and slender man, clean-shaven and with bright blue eyes that scanned continuously, taking in every detail. He wore fine clothes, and from the respect the two guards showed the man, Drizzt knew at once that he was of high rank.

He studied Drizzt for a long while, considering every move and every feature. "I am Cassius," he said at length, "Spokesman of Bryn Shander and Principle Spokesman of Ten-Towns' Ruling Council."

Drizzt dipped a short bow. "I am Drizzt Do'Urden," he said, "of Mirabar and points beyond, now come to Ten-Towns."

"Why?" Cassius asked sharply, trying to catch him off guard.

Drizzt shrugged. "Is a reason required?"

"For a dark elf, perhaps," Cassius replied honestly. Drizzt's accepting smile disarmed the spokesman and quieted the two guards, who now stood protectively close to his sides. "I can offer no reason for coming, beyond my desire to come," Drizzt continued. "Long has been my road, Spokesman Cassius. I am weary and in need of rest. Ten-Towns is the place of rogues, I have been told, and do not doubt that a dark elf is a rogue among the dwellers of the surface."

It seemed logical enough, and Drizzt's sincerity came through clearly to the observant spokesman. Cassius dropped his chin in his palm and thought for a long while. He didn't fear the drow, or doubt the elf's words, but he had no intention of allowing the stir that a drow would cause in his city.

"Bryn Shander is not your place," Cassius said bluntly, and Drizzt's lavender eyes narrowed at the unfair proclamation. Undaunted, Cassius pointed to the north. "Go to Lonelywood, in the forest on the northern banks of Maer Dualdon," he offered. He swung his gaze to the southeast. "Or to Good Mead or Dougan's Hole on the southern lake, Redwaters. These are smaller towns, where you will cause less stir and find less trouble."

"And when they refuse my entry?" Drizzt asked. "Where then, fair spokesman? Out in the wind to die on the empty plain?"

"You do not know - "

"I know," Drizzt interrupted. "I have played this game many times. Who will welcome a drow, even one who has forsaken his people and their ways and who desires nothing more than peace?" Drizzt's voice was stern and showed no self-pity, and Cassius again understood the words to be true.

Truly Cassius sympathized. He himself had been a rogue once and had been forced to the ends of the world, to forlorn Icewind Dale, to find a home. There were no ends farther than this; Icewind Dale was a rogue's last stop. Another thought came to Cassius then, a possible solution to the dilemma that would not nag at his conscience.

"How long have you lived on the surface?" Cassius asked, sincerely interested.

Drizzt considered the question for a moment, wondering what point the spokesman meant to make. "Seven years," he replied.

"In the northland?"

"Yes."

"Yet you have found no home, no village to take you in," Cassius said. "You have survived hostile winters and, doubtless, more direct enemies. Are you skilled with those blades you hang on your belt?"

"I am a ranger," Drizzt said evenly.

"An unusual profession for a drow," Cassius remarked.

"I am a ranger," Drizzt said again, more forcefully, "well trained in the ways of nature and in the use of my weapons."

"I do not doubt," Cassius mused. He paused, then said, "There is a place offering shelter and seclusion." The spokesman led Drizzt's gaze to the north, to the rocky slopes of Kelvin's Cairn. "Beyond the dwarven vale lies the mountain," Cassius explained, "and beyond that the open tundra. It would do Ten-Towns well to have a scout on the mountain's northern slopes. Danger always seems to come from that direction."

"I came to find my home," Drizzt interrupted. "You offer me a hole in a pile of rock and a duty to those whom I owe nothing." In truth, the suggestion appealed to Drizzt's ranger spirit.

"Would you have me tell you that things are different?" Cassius replied. "I'll not let a wandering drow into Bryn Shander."

"Would a man have to prove himself worthy?"

"A man does not carry so grim a reputation," Cassius replied evenly, without hesitation. "If I were so magnanimous, if I welcomed you on your words alone and threw my gates wide, would you enter and find your home? We both know better than that, drow. Not everyone in Bryn Shander would be so open-hearted, I promise. You would cause an uproar wherever you went and, whatever your demeanor and intent, you would be forced into battles.

"It would be the same in any of the towns," Cassius went on, guessing that his words had struck a chord of truth in the homeless drow. "I offer you a hole in a pile of rock, within the borders of Ten-Towns, where your actions, good or bad, will become your reputation beyond the color of your skin. Does rny offer seem so shallow now?"

"I shall need supplies," Drizzt said, accepting the truth of Cassius's words. "And what of my horse? I do not think the slopes of a mountain are a proper place for such a beast."

"Trade your horse then," Cassius offered. "My guard will get a fair price and return here with the supplies you will need."

Drizzt thought about the suggestion for a moment, then handed the reins to Cassius.

The spokesman left then, thinking himself quite clever. Not only had he averted any immediate trouble, he had convinced Drizzt to guard his borders, all in a place where Bruenor Battlehammer and his clan of grim-faced dwarves could certainly keep the drow from causing any trouble.

* * *

Roddy McGristle pulled his wagon into a small village nestled in the shadows of the mountain range's western end. Snow would come soon, the bounty hunter knew, and he had no desire to be caught halfway up the dale when it began. He'd stay here with the farmers and wait out the winter. Nothing could leave the dale without passing this area, and if Drizzt had gone there, as the friars had revealed, he had nowhere left to run.

* * *

Drizzt set out from the gates that night, preferring the darkness for his journey, despite the cold. His direct approach to the mountain took him along the eastern rim of the rocky gorge that the dwarves had claimed as their home. Drizzt took extra care to avoid any guards the bearded folk might have set. He had encountered dwarves only once before, when he had passed Citadel Adbar on his earliest wanderings out of Mooshie's Grove, and it had not been a pleasant experience. Dwarven patrols had chased him off without waiting for any explanations, and they had dogged him through the mountains for many days.

For all his prudence in getting past the valley, though, Drizzt could not ignore a high mound of rocks he came upon, a climb with steps cut into the piled stones. He was less than halfway to the mountain, with several miles and hours of night still to go, but Drizzt moved up the detour, step over step, enchanted by the widening panorama of town lights about him.

The climb was not high, only fifty feet or so, but with the flat tundra and clear night Drizzt was afforded a view of five cities: two on the banks of the lake to the east, two to the west on the largest lake, and Bryn Shander, on its hillock a few miles to the south.

How many minutes passed Drizzt did not know, for the sights sparked too many hopes and fantasies for him to notice. He had been in Ten-Towns for barely a day, but already he was feeling comfortable with the sights, with knowing that thousands of people about the mountain would hear of him and possibly come to accept him.

A grumbling, gravelly voice shook Drizzt from his contemplations. He dropped into a defensive crouch and circled behind a rock. The stream of complaints marked the coming figure clearly. He was wide-shouldered and about a foot shorter than Drizzt, though obviously heavier than the drow. Drizzt knew it was a dwarf even before the figure paused to adjust its helmet - by slamming its head into a stone.

"Dagnaggit blasted," the dwarf muttered, "adjusting" the helmet a second time.

Drizzt was certainly intrigued, but he was also smart enough to realize that a grumbling dwarf wouldn't likely welcome an uninvited drow in the middle of a dark night. As the dwarf moved for yet another adjustment, Drizzt skipped off, running lightly and silently along the side of the trail. He passed close by the dwarf but then was gone with no more rustle than the shadow of a cloud.

"Eh?" the dwarf mumbled when he came back up, this time satisfied with his headgear's fit. "Who's that? What're ye about?" He went into a series of short, spinning hops, eyes darting alertly all about.

There was only the darkness, the stones, and the wind.

23. A Memory Come to Life

The season's first snow fell lazily over Icewind Dale, large flakes drifting down in mesmerizing zigzag dances, so different from the wind-whipped blizzards most common to the region. The young girl, Catti-brie, watched it with obvious enchantment from the doorway of her cavern home, the hue of her deep-blue eyes seeming even purer in the reflection of the ground's white blanket.

"Late in comin', but hard when it gets here," grumbled Bruenor Battlehammer, a red-bearded dwarf, as he came up behind Catti-brie, his adopted daughter. "Suren to be a hard season, as are all in this place for white dragons!"

"Oh, me Daddy!" replied Catti-brie sternly. "Stop yer whining! Suren 'tis a beautiful fall, and harmless enough without the wind to drive it."

"Humans," huffed the dwarf derisively, still behind the girl. Catti-brie could not see his expression, tender toward her even as he grumbled, but she didn't need to. Bruenor was nine parts bluster and one part grouch, by Catti-brie's estimation.

Catti-brie spun on the dwarf suddenly, her shoulder-length, auburn locks twirling about her face. "Can I go out to play?" she asked, a hopeful smile on her face. "Oh, please, me Daddy!"

Bruenor forced on his best grimace. "Go out!" he roared. "None but a fool'd look for an Icewind Dale winter as a place for playin'! Show some sense, girl! The season'd freeze yer bones!"

Catti-brie's smile disappeared, but she refused to surrender so easily. "Well said for a dwarf," she retorted, to Bruenor's horror. "Ye're well enough fit for the holes and the less ye see o' the sky, the more ye're smiling! But I've a long winter ahead, and this might be me last chance to see the sky. Please, Daddy?"

Bruenor could not hold his snarling visage against his daughter's charm, but he did not want her to go out. "I'm fearing there's something prowlin' out there," he explained, trying to sound authoritative. "Sensed it on the climb a few nights back, though I never seen it. Mighten be a white lion, or a white bear. Best to... " Bruenor never finished, for Catti-brie's disheartened look more than destroyed the dwarf's imagined fears.

Catti-brie was no novice to the dangers of the region. She had lived with Bruenor and his dwarven clan for more than seven years. A raiding goblin band had killed Gatti-brie's parents when she was only a toddler, and, though she was human, Bruenor had taken her in as his own.

"Ye're a hard one, me girl," Bruenor said in answer to Catti-brie's relentless, sorrow-filled expression. "Go out and find yer play, then, but don't ye be goin' too far! On yer word, ye spirited filly, keep the caves in sight and a sword and horn on yer belt."

Catti-brie rushed over and planted a wet kiss on Bruenor's cheek, which the taciturn dwarf promptly wiped away, grumbling at the girl's back as she disappeared into the tunnel. Bruenor was the leader of the clan, as tough as the stone they mined. But every time Catti-brie planted an appreciative kiss on his cheek, the dwarf realized he had given in to her.

"Humans!" the dwarf growled again, and he stomped down the tunnel to the mine, thinking to batter a few pieces of iron, just to remind himself of his toughness.

* * *

It was easy for the spirited young girl to rationalize her disobedience when she looked back across the valley from the lower slopes of Kelvin's Cairn, more than three miles from Bruenor's front door. Bruenor had told Catti-brie to keep the caves in sight, and they were, or at least the wider terrain around them was, from this high vantage point.

But Catti-brie, happily sliding down one bumpy expanse, soon found a flaw in not heeding to her experienced father's warnings. She had come to the bottom, a delightful ride, and was briskly rubbing the stinging chill out of her hands, when she heard a low and ominous growl.

"White lion," Catti-brie mouthed silently, remembering Bruenor's suspicion. When she looked up, she saw that her father's guess had not quite hit the mark. It was indeed a great feline the girl saw looking down at her from a bare, stony mound, but the cat was black, not white, and a huge panther, not a lion.

Defiantly, Catti-brie pulled her knife from its sheath. "Keep yerself back, cat!" she said, only the slightest tremor in her voice, for she knew that fear invited attack from wild animals.

Guenhwyvar flattened its ears and plopped to its belly, then issued a long and resounding roar that echoed throughout the stony region.

Catti-brie could not respond to the power in that roar, or to the very long and abundant teeth the panther showed. She searched around for some escape but knew that no matter which way she ran she could not get beyond the panther's first mighty spring.

"Guenhwyvar!" came a call from above. Catti-brie looked back up the snowy expanse to see a slender, cloaked form picking a careful route toward her. "Guenhwyvar!" the newcomer called again. "Be gone from here!"

The panther growled a throaty reply, then bounded away, leaping the snow-covered boulders and springing up small cliffs as easily as if it were running across a smooth and flat field.

Despite her continuing fears, Catti-brie watched the departing panther with sincere admiration. She had always loved animals and had often studied them, but the interplay of Guenhwyvar's sleek muscles was more majestic than anything she had ever imagined. When she at last came out of her trance, she realized that the slender figure was right behind her. She whirled about, knife still in hand.

The blade dropped from her grasp and her breathing halted abruptly as soon as she looked upon the drow.

Drizzt, too, found himself stunned by the encounter. He wanted to make certain that the girl was all right, but when he looked upon Catti-brie, all thoughts of his purpose faded away in a flood of memories.

She was about the same age as the sandy-haired boy on the farm, Drizzt noted initially, and that thought inevitably brought back the agonizing memories of Maldobar. When Drizzt looked more closely, though, into Catti-brie's eyes, his thoughts were sent flying back further into his past, to his days marching alongside his dark kin. Catti-brie's eyes possessed that same joyful and innocent sparkle that Drizzt had seen in the eyes of an elven child, a girl he had rescued from the savage blades of his raiding kin. The memory overwhelmed Drizzt, sent him whirling back to that bloody glade in the elven wood, where his brother and fellow drow had brutally slaughtered an elven gathering. In the frenzy, Drizzt had almost killed the elven child, had almost put himself forever on that same dark road that his kin so willingly followed.

Drizzt shook himself free of the recollection and reminded himself that this was a different child of a different race. He meant to speak a greeting, but the girl was gone.

That damning word, "drizzit," echoed in the drow's thoughts several times as he made his way back to the cave he had set up as his home on the mountain's northern face.

* * *

That same night, the onslaught of the season began in full. The cold eastern wind blowing off the Reghed Glacier drove the snow into high, impassable drifts.

Catti-brie watched the snow forlornly, fearing that many weeks might pass before she could again go to Kelvin's Cairn. She hadn't told Bruenor or any of the other dwarves about the drow, for fear of punishment and that Bruenor would drive the drow away. Looking at the piling snow, Catti-brie wished that she had been braver, had remained and talked to the strange elf. Every howl of the wind heightened that wish and made the girl wonder if she had lost her only chance.

"I'm off to Bryn Shander," Bruenor announced one morning more than two months later. An unexpected break had come in Icewind Dale's normal seven-month winter, a rare January thaw. Bruenor eyed his daughter suspiciously for a long moment. "Ye're meanin' to go out yerself this day?" he asked.

"If I may," Catti-brie answered. "The caves're tight around me and the wind's not so cold."

"I'll get a dwarf or two to go with ye," Bruenor offered.

Catti-brie, thinking that now might be her chance to go back to investigate the drow, balked at the notion. "They're all for mendin' their doors!" she retorted, more sharply than she intended. "Don't ye be botherin' them for the likes of meself!"

Bruenor's eyes narrowed. "Ye've too much stubbornness in ye."

"I get it from me dad," Catti-brie said with a wink that shot down any more forthcoming arguments.

"Take care, then," Bruenor began, "and keep - "

"... the caves in sight!" Catti-brie finished for him. Bruenor spun about and stomped out of the cave, grumbling helplessly and cursing the day he had ever taken a human in for a daughter. Catti-brie only laughed at the unending facade.

Once again it was Guenhwyvar who first encountered the auburn-haired girl. Catti-brie had set straight out for the mountain and was making her way around its westernmost trails when she spotted the black panther above her, watching her from a rock spur.

"Guenhwyvar," the girl called, remembering the name the drow had used. The panther growled lowly and dropped from the spur, moving closer.

"Guenhwyvar?" Catti-brie said again, less certain, for the panther was only a few dozen strides away. Guenhwyvar's ears came up at the second mention of the name and the cat's taut muscles visibly relaxed.

Catti-brie approached slowly, one deliberate step at a time. "Where's the dark elf, Guenhwyvar?" she asked quietly. "Can ye take me to him?"

"And why would you want to go to him?" came a question from behind.

Catti-brie froze in her tracks, remembering the smooth-toned, melodic voice, then turned slowly to face the drow. He was only three steps behind her, his lavender-eyed gaze locking onto hers as soon as they met. Catti-brie had no idea of what to say, and Drizzt, absorbed again by memories, stood quiet, watching and waiting.

"Be ye a drow?" Catti-brie asked after the silence became unbearable. As soon as she heard her own words, she privately berated herself for asking such a stupid question.

"I am," Drizzt replied. "What does that mean to you?"

Catti-brie shrugged at the strange response. "I've heard that drow be evil, but ye don't seem so to me."

"Then you have taken a great risk in coming out here all by yourself," Drizzt remarked. "But fear not," he quickly added, seeing the girl's sudden uneasiness, "for I am not evil and will bring no harm to you." After the months alone in his comfortable but empty cave, Drizzt did not want this meeting to end quickly.

Catti-brie nodded, believing his words. "Me name's Catti-brie," she said. "Me dad is Bruenor, King o' Clan Battlehammer."

Drizzt cocked his head curiously.

"The dwarves," Catti-brie explained, pointing back to the valley. She understood Drizzt's confusion as soon as she spoke the words. "He's not me real dad," she said. "Bruenor took me in when I was just a babe, when me real parents were... "

She couldn't finish, and Drizzt didn't need her to, understanding her pained expression.

"I am Drizzt Do'Urden," the drow interjected. "Well met, Catti-brie, daughter of Bruenor. It is good to have another to talk with. For all these weeks of winter, I have had only Guenhwyvar, there, when the cat is around, and my friend does not say much, of course!"

Catti-brie's smile nearly took in her ears. She glanced over her shoulder to the panther, now reclining lazily in the path. "She's a beautiful cat," Catti-brie remarked.

Drizzt did not doubt the sincerity in the girl's tone, or in the admiring gaze she dropped on Guenhwyvar. "Come here, Guenhwyvar" Drizzt said, and the panther stretched and slowly rose. Guenhwyvar walked right beside Catti-brie, and Drizzt nodded to answer her unspoken but obvious desire, Tentatively at first, but then firmly, Catti-brie stroked the panther's sleek coat, feeling the beast's power and perfection. Guenhwyvar accepted the petting without complaint, even bumped into Catti-brie's side when she stopped for a moment, prodding her to continue.

"Are you alone?" Drizzt asked.

Catti-brie nodded. "Me dad said to keep the caves in sight." She laughed. "I can see them well enough, by me thinkin'!"

Drizzt looked back into the valley, to the far rock wall several miles away. "Your father would not be pleased. This land is not so tame. I have been on the mountain for only two months, and I have fought twice already shaggy white beasts I do not know."

"Tundra yeti," Catti-brie replied. "Ye must be on the northern side. Tundra yeti don't come around the mountain."

"Are you so certain?" Drizzt asked sarcastically.

"I've not ever seen one," Catti-brie replied, "but I'm not fearing them. I came to find yerself, and now I have."

"You have," said Drizzt, "and now what?"

Catti-brie shrugged and went back to petting Guenhwyvar's sleek coat.

"Come," Drizzt offered. "Let us find a more comfortable place to talk. The glare off the snow stings my eyes."

"Ye're used to the dark tunnels?" Catti-brie asked hopefully, eager to hear tales of lands beyond the borders of Ten-Towns, the only place Catti-brie had ever known.

Drizzt and the girl spent a marvelous day together. Drizzt told Catti-brie of Menzoberranzan and Catti-brie answered his tales with stories of Icewind Dale, of her life with the dwarves. Drizzt was especially interested in hearing about Bruenor and his kin, since the dwarves were his closest, and most-feared, neighbors.

"Bruenor talks rough as stone, but I'm knowin' him better than all that!" Catti-brie assured the drow. "He's a right fine one, and so's the rest o' the clan."

Drizzt was glad to hear it, and glad, too, that he had made this connection, both for the implications of having such a friend and even more so because he truly enjoyed the charming and spirited lass's company. Catti-brie's energy and zest for life verily bubbled over. In her presence, the drow could not recall his haunting memories, could only feel good about his decision to save the elven child those many years before. Catti-brie's singsong voice and the careless way she flipped her flowing hair about her shoulders lifted the burden of guilt from Drizzt's back as surely as a giant could have hoisted a rock.

Their tales could have gone on all that day and night, and for many weeks afterward, but when Drizzt noticed the sun riding low along the western horizon, he realized that the time had come for the girl to head back to her home.

"I will take you," Drizzt offered.

"No," Catti-brie replied. "Ye best not. Bruenor'd not understand, and ye'd get me in a mountain o' trouble. I can get back, don't ye be worrying! I know these trails better'n yerself, Drizzt Do'Urden, and ye couldn't keep up to me if ye tried!"

Drizzt laughed at the boast but almost believed it. He and the girl set out at once, moving to the mountain's southernmost spur and then saying their good-byes with promises that they would meet again during the next thaw, or in the spring if none came sooner.

* * *

Truly the girl was skipping lightly when she entered the dwarven complex, but one look at her surly father stole a measure of her delight. Bruenor had gone to Bryn Shander that morning on business with Cassius. The dwarf wasn't thrilled to learn that a dark elf had made a home so close to his door, but he guessed that his curious - too curious-daughter would think it a grand thing.

"Keep yerself away from the mountain," Bruenor said as soon as he noticed Catti-brie, and then she was in despair.

"But me Dad - " she tried to protest.

"On yer word, girl!" the dwarf demanded. "Ye'll not set foot on that mountain again without me permission! There's a dark elf there, by Cassius's telling. On yer word!"

Catti-brie nodded helplessly, then followed Bruenor back to the dwarven complex, knowing she would have a hard time changing her father's mind, but knowing, too, Bruenor held views far from justified where Drizzt Do'Urden was concerned.

* * *

Another thaw came a month later and Catti-brie heeded her promise. She never put one foot on Kelvin's Cairn, but from the valley trails around it, she called out to Drizzt and to Guenhwyvar. Drizzt and the panther, looking for the girl with the break in the weather, were soon beside her, in the valley this time, sharing more tales and a picnic lunch that Catti-brie had packed.

When Catti-brie got back to the dwarven mines that evening, Bruenor suspected much and asked her only once if she had kept her word. The dwarf had always trusted his daughter, but when Catti-brie answered that she had not been on Kelvin's Cairn, his suspicions did not diminish.