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Drizzt watched closely as deBernezan described this second division of the barbarian forces on hisinitial defense plans Bryn Shander’s hill wasn’t very high but its base was thick, and the barbarians ere to swing around the back of the hill would be a long way fro way from reinforcements

"The city will fall before sunset!" deBernezan declared triumphantly "And your men will feast on the finest booty in all of Ten-Towns!" A sudden cheer went up on cue fros at the southerner’s declaration of victory

Drizzt put his back to the tent and considered what he had heard This dark-haired man naths and weaknesses If Bryn Shander fell, no organized resistance could be formed to drive off the invaders Indeed, once they held the fortified city, the barbarians would be able to strike at their leisure at any of the other towns

"Again you have showntell the southerner, and the ensuing of conversations told the drow that the plans had been accepted as final Drizzt then focused his keen senses on the enca the best path for his escape He noticed suddenly that two guards alking his way and talking Though they were too far away for their hu but a shadow on the side of the tent, he knew that anyiround "Guenhwyvar," he called softly "Come to me, my shadow"

Somewhere in a corner of the vast astral plane, the entity of the panther moved in sudden, subtle steps as it stalked the entity of the deer The beasts of this natural world had played out this scenario countless tiuided the lives of their descendents The panther crouched low for the final spring, sensing the sweetness of the upco kill This strike was the harmony of natural order; the purpose of the panther’s existence, and the h, when it heard the call of its true name, compelled above any other directives to heed the call of its , darkened corridor thatthe the solitary speck of light that was its life on the material plane And then it was beside the dark elf, its soul skins of a huency of its master’s call and quickly opened its uards approached cautiously, trying to s’ tent Suddenly Guenhwyvar sprang toward theuards swung the weapons futilely and charged off after the cat, screa an alert to the rest of the camp

In the excitement of the diversion, Drizzt moved calmly and stealthily away in a different direction He heard the shouts of alar warriors and couldn’t help but sroup Upon sighting this feline, who race and speed that it appeared as no er, instead of giving chase, fell to their knees and raised their hands and voices in thanks to Te the peri off in the direction of the coained the blackness of the open tundra, he turned south toward Kelvin’s Cairn and sped off across the lonely plain in full flight, all the while concentrating on finalizing a deadly counter-plan of defense The stars told him that there were less than three hours left before dawn, and he knew that hewith Bruenor if the ambush were to be properly set

The noise of the surprised barbarians soon died away, except for the prayers of the Tribe of the Tiger, which would continue until dawn A feweasily by Drizzt’s side

"A hundred times you have saved reat cat’s muscled neck "A hundred tiuin’ and scufflin’ for two days now," Bruenor rereater ene of barbarians in a different way," Drizzt replied, though a smile had found its way onto his normally stoic features He knew that his plan was solid and that the battle this day would belong to the people of Ten-Towns "Go now and lay the trap - you’ve not an loadin’ the womenfolk and children onto the boats as soon as Rumblebelly told us yer news," Bruenor explained "We’ll chase the verh!" The dwarf spread his feet wide in his custoed his axe onto his shield to eood eye for battle, elf Yer plan’ll turn the surprise on the barbarians and it still splits the glory evenly aos should be pleased," Drizzt agreed

Bruenor clapped his friend on the arht beside h he already knew the answer

"As it should be," Drizzt assured him

"An’ the cat?"

"Guenhwyvar has already played its part in this battle," replied the drow "I’ll be sending my friend home soon"

Bruenor was pleased with the answer; he didn’t trust the drow’s strange beast "It ain’t natural," he said to hiathered hosts of Ten-Towns

Bruenor was too far away for Drizzt to make out his final words, but the dro the dell enough to gather the general s He understood the uneasiness that Bruenor, and ic was a prominent part of the underworld of his people, a necessary fact of their everyday existence, but it wasthe common folk of the surface Dwarves in particular were usually uncoical weapons and arh, had no anxiety around Guenhwyvar frourine had belonged to Masoj Hun’ett, a drow of high standing in a proift froe for so sonomes Drizzt and the cat had crossed paths many tis They shared an empathy with each other that transcended the relationship that the cat felt with its then master

Guenhwyvar had even rescued Drizzt fro protectively over the droas not yet its master Drizzt had struck out alone fro city when he fell prey to a cave fisher, a crablike denizen of the dark caverns that custoh above the floor of a tunnel and dropped an invisible, sticky line of webbing Like an angler, this cave fisher had waited, and like a fish, Drizzt had fallen into its trap The sticky line entangled hied up the side of the corridor’s stone wall

He saw no hope for surviving this encounter and vividly understood that a terrible death certainly awaited hi the broken clefts and ridges along the wall at the saard to its own safety and following no orders, the cat charged right in on the fisher, knocking it fro only its own safety, tried to scramble away, but Guenhwyvar pounced upon it vindictively, as if to punish it for attacking Drizzt

Both the drow and the cat knew froether Yet the cat had no power to disobey the will of its urine from Masoj, especially since the house of Hun’ett was much more powerful than Drizzt’s own family in the structured hierarchy of the underworld

And so the drow and the cat continued their casual relationship as distant coh, canore Guenhwyvar was often taken on raids with Masoj, whether against enemy drow houses or other denizens of the underworld The cat normally carried out its orders efficiently, thrilled to aid its ainst a clan of Svirfnebli, the deep noainst the drow in their common habitat, Masoj went too far in his maliciousness

After the initial assault on the clan, the surviving gnomes scattered down the many corridors of their mazework mines The raid had been successful; the treasures that had been sought were taken, and the clan had been dispatched, obviously never to bother the drow again But Masoj wanted more blood

He used Guenhwyvar, the proud, majestic hunter, as his instrunomes one by one until they were all destroyed

Drizzt and several other droitnessed the spectacle The others, in their characteristic vileness, thought it great sport, but Drizzt found hinized the humiliation painfully etched on the proud cat’s features Guenhwyvar was a hunter, not an assassin, and to use it in such a role was cri of the horrors that Masoj was inflicting upon the innocent gno line of outrages which Drizzt could no longer bear He had always known that he was unlike his kin in h he had many times feared that he would prove to be more akin to the the death of another more important than the mere sport it represented to the vast majority of drow He couldn’t label it, for he had never coe that spoke of such a trait, but to the surfacedwellers that later came to know Drizzt, it was called conscience

One day the very next week, Drizzt rounds of Menzoberranzan He knew that there could be no turning back once the fatal blow had been struck, but he didn’t even hesitate, slipping his sci victim That was the only time in his life that he had ever killed one of his own race, an act that thoroughly revolted his toward his people

Then he took the figurine and fled,only to find another of the countless dark holes in the vast underworld toup on the surface And then, unaccepted and persecuted for his heritage in city after city in the populated south, he had made his way to the wilderness frontier of Ten-Towns, apot of outcasts, the last outpost of humanity, where he was at least tolerated

He didn’t carehe usually received even here He had found friendship with the halfling, and the dwarves, and Bruenor’s adopted daughter, Catti-brie

And he had Guenhwyvar by his side He patted the great cat’s ain and left Bremen’s Run to find a dark hole where he could rest before the battle