Sojourn: The Legend of Drizzt by R. A. Salvatore Page B

many minutes to circumvent.
    “Go on!” Roddy told the rest of the group. “Chase the thing along this course. I’ll take my dogs’n go far to the side and cut the thing off, turn it back to ye!” The farmers hooted their accord and bounded away, and Roddy pulled back the chains and turned his dogs aside.
    The dogs, trained for the hunt, wanted to go on, but their master had another route in mind. Several thoughts bothered Roddy at that moment. He had been in these mountains for thirty years but had never seen, or even heard of, such a cat. Also, though the panther easily could have left its pursuers far behind, it always seemed to appear out in the open not too far away, as though it was leading the farmers on. Roddy knew a diversion when he saw it, and he had a good guess of where the perpetrator might be hiding. He muzzled the dogs to keep them silent and headed back the way he had come, back to the blueberry patch.

    Drizzt rested against a tree in the shadows of the thick copse and wondered how he might further his exposure to the farmers without causing any more panic among them. In his days of watching the single farm family, Drizzt had become convinced that he could find a place among the humans, of this or of some other settlement, if only he could convince them that his intentions were not dangerous.
    A buzz to Drizzt’s left brought him abruptly from his contemplations. Quickly he drew his scimitars, then something flashed by him, too fast for him to react. He cried out at a sudden pain in his wrist, and his scimitar was pulled from his grasp. Confused, Drizzt looked down to his wound, expecting to see an arrow or crossbow bolt stuck deep into his arm.
    The wound was clean and empty. A high-pitched laughter spun Drizzt to the right. There stood the sprite, Drizzt’s scimitar casually slung over one shoulder, nearly touching the ground behind the diminutive creature, and a dagger, dripping blood, in his other hand.
    Drizzt stayed very still, trying to guess the thing’s next move. He had never seen a quickling, or even heard of the uncommon creatures, but he already had a good idea of his speedy opponent’s advantage. Before the drow could form any plan to defeat the quickling, though, another nemesis showed itself.
    Drizzt knew as soon as he heard the howl that his cry of pain had revealed him. The first of Roddy McGristle’s snarling hounds crashed through the brush, charging in low at the drow. The second, a few running strides behind the first, came in high, leaping toward Drizzt’s throat.
    This time, though, Drizzt was the quicker. He slashed down with his remaining scimitar, cutting the first dog’s head andbashing its skull. Without hesitation, Drizzt threw himself backward, reversing his grip on the blade and bringing it up above his face, in line with the leaping dog. The scimitar’s hilt locked fast against the tree trunk, and the dog, unable to turn in its flight, drove hard into the set weapon’s other end, impaling itself through the throat and chest. The wrenching impact tore the scimitar from Drizzt’s hand and dog and blade bounced away into some scrub to the side of the tree.
    Drizzt had barely recovered when Roddy McGristle burst in.
    “Ye killed my dogs!” the huge mountain man roared, chopping Bleeder, his large, battle-worn axe, down at the drow’s head. The cut came deceptively swiftly, but Drizzt managed to dodge to the side. The drow couldn’t understand a word of McGristle’s continuing stream of expletives, and he knew that the burly man would not understand a word of any explanations Drizzt might try to offer.
    Wounded and unarmed, Drizzt’s only defense was to continue to dodge away. Another swipe nearly caught him, cutting through his gnoll cloak, but he sucked in his stomach, and the axe skipped off his fine chain mail. Drizzt danced to the side, toward a tight cluster of smaller trees, where he believed his greater agility might give him some advantage. He had to