41. The Lone Ranger

When his possessed kinsman had assaulted the High Hedge, bird and beast, vermin and insect, had all scurried away, obeying the same instincts that bid them flee from earthquake and storm, for this is what they had felt, for this was precisely the essence of the thing from which they fled.

"Destruction," this elf whispered, to himself, as he had been for many a day, "It is in the air of late, and the winds shall not soon change."

"And never shall they change for me," he spoke to himself again, "Until my beloved is avenged. Tenna amin liyalai naa riyan! Tenna lye aelo au, aul Arvundor… "

Until my beloved is avenged. Until we meet again, in Arvundor.

"Liy naa oira. Herian naa eria."

Love is eternal. Justice is inevitable.

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Despite Xzar's protests, Drizzt's body was not reanimated for use as a magic-resistant pack-mule, simply tied with stones and sunk to the bottom of the lake. Jade lightly could and did wear her gray tunic and pants over his shining azure mithril, and only her lightest cottons beneath, not wishing the famous armor to catch the attention of the lawless or the law. As for her new scimitar Icingdeath, she wouldn't be showing it off to anyone she intended to live to tell.

Two hours north, they overtook a cloaked figure that appeared to be studying the ground; in particular sets of huge footprints. Before he was in focus of any of the party, his head had cocked toward them, and he studied intently. As they drew closer, Jade made out that a composite longbow hung over the back of his camouflage cloak. Long ears speared up over the sides of his hood, his chin and forehead were oddly tattooed with gray-blue paths; his features were sharp and strong, Jade would have thought them handsome were the face not so grim.

The elf called out. "Hail, travelers? What takes you this far from civilization?"

Her companions muttered various sarcastic answers or non-answers under their breaths. Branwen gave Jade a knowing look; the girl nodded and the woman spoke. "We are adventurers, ready to smite any evil that darkens our path."

Edwina snorted, "hmmp!", and Montaron and Kagain snickered in open disdain.

"A strange coincidence…" the elf mused, in a voice that was gravely and weatherworn. "I have a quest similar to your own. I have been hunting the bandits in the region for the past few months."

Jade studied him. "Why have you spent months hunting them?"

The elf grimaced, eyes flicking about at things that were not there, and inhaled. "Their leader, an ogre named…Tazok, took the life of someone very dear to me."

The party sucked in their breaths. "I'm sorry," Jade spoke. Then she smiled grimly. "We are hunting him too."

"Are you?" the elf's voice held the hope of one who dares not.

"We have learned that he is party to this iron crisis, a boss of the saboteurs in Nashkel."

The elf shook his head. "This crisis is well known to me, to all within a hundred miles, and to every ranger within a thousand. To have engineered it, is beyond him. Evil is he greatly, a chief somewhat, but such a schemer, no."

"We believe he works for the Iron Throne," Jade disclosed plainly. "A consortium from Sembia, and now in Baldur's Gate. We wish to delve into this scheme, and some of us have reasons as personal as your own."

Branwen nodded. "One among their number, Tranzig, a foul mage and fouler bandit, rendered my flesh stone; by these warriors I was freed."

Jade continued, "There is a bounty upon my head, and though I do not know why, I am sure they are behind it. One of them slew my father."

"And another, my lover," the elf looked away. He looked back, studying Edwina's bright red robes for a moment with a faint and disapproval glimmer of recognition. He then glanced at Kagain the dwarf, and his face remained grim; when it set upon Montaron and Xzar it grew more warily curious. "I shall find Tazok. I shall say to him – 'Hello. My name is Kivan of Shilmista. You killed my beloved. Prepare to die.'"

Xzar peered at his tattooed fellow. "Fascinating. This Tazok…did he by any chance of six fingers on his left hand?"

The elf gasped. "How did you know?"

"Oh," Xzar giggled slyly, "It's just one of those things."

The elf frowned quizzically, and dismissed it. "Perhaps if we worked together, we might avenge them all. What say you to that?" His eyes now grew less dark, and fixed on Jade.

She smiled, and swung her head forward, letting her scarlet bangs fling northward. "Jade of Candlekeep."

"Branwen of Seawolf, Battleguard of Tempus."

"Kagain. Where I'm from ain't no elf's leaf-lovin' care."

"Monty Sackins o' Gullykin, at yer service, or better yet ye at mine."

"Edwina Odesseiron, of the house Odesseiron, Red Wizard of Thay, conjuress of unsurpassed brilliance, beauty, breeding, and taste."

"Xzar, the happy necromancer from the Marshmallow Kingdom, where the rockinghorse knight constructs of pure chaos battle the jello-worms from the ninth planet of Hyborea!"

"He's from Candlekeep, like me," Jade smiled lopsidedly. She examined the tracks.

"Half-ogres," Kivan explained. "I have tracked them and shall soon be upon them."

Montaron murmured, "A paladin in Beregost was offerin' a reward. A magical shield."

Jade smiled when the ranger pointed northeast. "We make that way too, for Beregost, where we believe Tranzig to be. Let these monsters fall before our arrows, and then I believe we all shall have reasons for continuing into town."

Kivan only said, "Follow me."

He led them for the next half-hour through field and fern, his strides long and light, and purposeful even when the tracks were not readily seen. They rounded another lake, and Kivan's ears perked, and he signaled.

Ahead, Jade could easily see and hear the brutes; they were making a campfire as the sun now sank in the sky, nearby one skinned hanging meat, Jade tried not to study its shape or discern its origin. When Kivan slung his longbow off his back, Jade did the same. Branwen armed her sling, and Montaron his crossbow. They marched a ways about the lake, and the half-ogres still took no notice as they came to less than two hundred feet away. Kivan notched and aimed an arrow, even though none of the others believed themselves in range. He let it fly, and all watched as it sailed through the air, and embedded itself in the back of the skull of the half-ogre who sat facing away. He started, and fell backwards, firewood falling from his warty greenish arms. Jade herself loosed an arrow too, but it fell short, into the lake.

The other ogres hollered and stomped, and reached for large and crude blades, and stormed around the curving bank of the lake. Kivan felled another just as he picked up his weapon, and Jade was still out of range, but they stormed on, and she made a shot just as Kivan shot his third arrow. Jade smiled with grim pride as his ricocheted off the helm this beast wore, but hers plunged through its breast. Yet still it charged, but Montaron now clicked off a bolt into its belly. Kivan's next arrow sank into its heart and felled it. The fourth and fifth monsters charged on, but neither made it. Kivan's fourth arrow pierced the throat of one; the other groaned as a crossbow bolt, an arrow sang into its body; when Branwen's bullet smacked its forehead it stumbled back and blinked, then Kivan's fifth arrow lodged deep in its left eye and it fell backwards.

"You're quite an archer," Jade smiled at Kivan, even more impressed than she let herself convey. "We might just keep you."

"Thank you, for your kind words," the elf stated without humor. Jade turned away, and shared a frustrated look with Branwen over the dreary demeanor.

"All ya elves this melancholy?" Kagain snorted, "Ya shoulda met Xan, as dull as they make 'em, lilly-livered Greycloak in this violet dress, couldn't have lifted his own sword if'n it weren't one of those airy-fairy swords of yours…"

Kivan was not heeding the dwarf's intent, rather his face creased at once. He spoke, "I have seen him."

"O' course," Kagain rambled on, "'Yer all inbreds…"

"Wait!" Jade glared at Kagain, then asked Kivan, "When?"

"An elf of this description," Kivan answered, "With violet wizard's robes, and a moonblade. Just last light…he was mad, running through the fields. I saw him set upon an entire party of gnolls. He slew them, and then feasted upon the remains. Then he ripped asunder the doors of the High Hedge. I heard the sounds of magic and battle from within, but no know more."

The party chilled as they listened. "That's our Xan," Jade grimaced, "He was…possessed. By, as near we can tell a Netherese god of earthquake, storms, and destruction, Kozah."

Kivan nodded, "I had suspected something of the sort, for the behavior was truly alien to elvenkind."

Kagain groaned. "Ya mean the ability. Wicked elves aren't as rare as ye'd like ta belief." He looked across Xzar, Edwina, and Jade. "Ya best learn that now, kids, if ya want to adventure yer gonna learn it one way or another."

Elf and dwarf stared at one another coldly while Xzar happily and singularly volunteered for the task of scalping the half-ogres, though Montaron was eager to loot their bodies and campsite – making sure he scoured each before his colleague did the more grisly work. The party then moved on; but only to the end of the lake far past the half-ogres' campsite, for now they would make their own as the sun set.

Xzar was 'relieved' of mess duty, ostensibly for hard work scalping, but truly because none wished for half-ogre eyeball soup. Edwin expended an unused Burning Hands spell to get a fire started with Montaron's stolen firewood, and the halfling saw to cooking venison – having also quietly relieved the conjuress of some of her stash of exotic homeland spices. He would find out by dinnertime of course, but be able to do little except hurl insults and threats and spend the rest of the campfire light sulking in her spellbook.

Among her existent party, Jade was last into her tent, but gave Kivan a last glance, where he sat near the bygone fire upon a log, and listened to and watched the night.

"I need no sleep," he told her in a low voice, when he noticed, "Reverie but no rest, until my vengeance."

Branwen mumbled a hearty, if sleepy, concurrence from within the tent, and before she too vanished behind the flap, Jade nodded along, and smiled at Kivan. "Nor me 'til mine."

It was with this in her mind, that she fell into sleep and dreams.