Light in the Darkness

Chapter Sixteen

The prisoner let out a deep, gutteral growl as he entered the room. Drizzt knew that the sound came from something that in all likelyhood looked human but wasn't. Werewolves often were known to sometimes act more animalistic, even while in their human form.

That is, if he was dealing with a lycanthrope, that is. By the sounds the male was making, he definitely was.

Slowly, and with the help of a guard he had been ordered to go with, he made his way towards the cell, his every step reluctant.

It wasn't that he had any grudge against werewolves, after all, he did know Bidderdoo and he was quite nice if not...eccentric, bordering on psychotic. He just didn't know the prison well, as he had never been down there before. Now, with his blindness, he was finding the experience a little more...hair raising than he normally would.

The growling got louder and deeper the closer he got. He knew the only part of that, not due to his now excellent hearing was the deeper part. The male prisoner must have recognised him as the one who had killed his mate in the battle for Silverymoon, not too long ago.

The memory of it was suddenly very vivid and Drizzt automatically added pictures in his mind to go with the soounds he had heard. The events that had followed, starting with Delly almost losing her unborn child had wiped the fight from his memory.

He had forgotten completely that he had kept this one alive for questioning afterwards. But now that he was here, guards flanking him on three sides, he might as well get it over with.

"Why did you and your people attack Silverymoon?" he asked, immediately putting on his best 'I am a drow, fear me' voice. His only response was another growl, followed by a choked sounding chuckle.

"You don't scare me, Ranger!" Spat the creature in his direction, obviously not liking his profession very well.

Drizzt lifted one of his white eyebrows and cocked his head to one side. "So, I take it you do not like rangers?"

A clang of metal was heard and Drizzt jumped back. The werewolf was now flinging itself at the door of its cell, in an attempt to get to him. This time for reasons than he being a drow. The thought almost made him chuckle.

Almost.

The fact that he could only hear the male now pacing the cell in front of him made the feeling of anger trickle back into him, but he banished it quickly. He would not go about losing his temper again. It ended up with someone being hurt and with all the likelihood of it being him.

"You are a werewolf? Perhaps you could...shed some light on a recent ambush my friends and I got into. We were attacked by a group of your kind while on our way to Silverymoon, and again while here in the city. Was it because of me, or is there another reason."

The male behind the bars chuckled at hearing what he had just said. "Not everything bad that happens about you is because of you."

The creature stuck behind iron bars fell quiet after saying that, except for his breathing and the quiet shuffling of someone pacing. Drizzt felt a strange urge to open the cage door and let the prisoner go, for no other reason than the fact that he reminded of a wild animal that had been captured and kept in a cage for the amuzement of anyone to come and see. This was behinning to resemble a zoo in his mind.

He quickly shook his head, sending his waist length white hair flying behind him. He frowned at the feeling. If Catti-brie saw him right now, she would beg him to cut it a little, if to just neaten up the wild ends.

Where had that come from, he thought, frowning at his wandering mind, before turning his attention back to the still pacing werewolf.

He tried to bring it back into some semblance of a conversation, but failed, the pacing footsteps changing from two feet to four paws. Heaving a sigh, he got the guards he was with to take him back to the palace proper.

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Lyavain laid on the bed in the Healing Quarters she was now in, a cleric leaning over her. She felt strange, like as if a fever was raging inside, but her skin was cool and she was as pale as she normally was, perhaps a little more from the loss of blood she had aquired from her fight with Shade.

The fight....there was something important that she was forgetting about that, but she couldn't remember what exactly that was at the moment.

Sighing, she turned to her side, wondering if anyone had bothered to go and call her one and only drow friend. She asked the cleric, a male who seemed to worship Lathander. He smiled at her then, a look that made him seem much less...severe.

"Word has arrived that he had been busy with the unfortunate interrogation of a prisoner that had tried to attack the city. We are going to send a runner again shortly, hoping that he has finished with that nasty business."

Lyavain relaxed a little, her blonde hair faning aboutbher head as she let herself wonder when her friend would make it here. "Can you please see if the elf, Tarathiel could accompany him please?"

The young priest smiled at her, before wandering over to the next patient lying in the bed a few away from her own.

She felt a little better...in mind that was. The fire eating away at her veins just made her physically feel worse and very uncomfortable.

She was thinking of all that happened in the last fight with the local Bloodmaster and suddenly sat bolt upright in the bed. He was the local Bloodmaster! The leader of the werecreatures of what could possibly be just the Moonwood, but could possibly be the entire Silver Marches area.

She had been bitten slightly and scratched by his sharp claws in a dozen places and she had not been treated with the one herb that was local that could stop the...disease from spreading to her.

A weerewolf! She had been infected. After all this time Shade had gotten his revenge on her. Colt was dead and she had irrevocably been changed into a moster.

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Tarathiel stared at his friend, watching as she tried to keep her composure around him.

He had just been told the news of what Lyavain had just discovered of herself. Thankfully, though she would be stuck being a werewolf for the rest of her life as no known cure was found, there were places she could go to learn how to control the beast. Also she had a good two weeks before the next full moon.

He supposed there were the small tnings like that, which would matter in a situation like this. Well, the Clerics of Selune weren't fussy about werewolves. Perhaps a friend at the local temple could help her?

"Have you thought about what will happen now?" He asked, seeing Lyavain shake her head no.

"I am too busy trying to wake up from the nightmare I seem to be stuck in. All the Elves in the Moonwood know of the werewolves and that this could happen, but it is a bit different to know it is happening to you."

Not knowing what else to do, Tarathiel enveloped his friend in a hug, wishing himself that this had not happened.

Unfortunately, that was one wish a spell, or a potion cannot change.

His arms tightened about Lyavain when she began to silently cry onto her shoulder. Drizzt would have to wait until tomorrow to talk to her. He had been shipped off with a few travellers to help them to Nesme.

Tarathiel wondered what tthe drow ranger would think of this situation. He did, after all not like werewolves very much.

A/N - Wow, this chapter is up a whole lot sooner than I thought it would be! Well, I hope you all enjoy it anyways, hehe.

This story is getting close to its end now. I am glad that, regardless of how long it is taking me, I am still going at it. See people! I don't quit my stories!

Thanks go to my reviewers for telling me they still like this story.

Rebell (thanks for thinking they are in character!), Aya-Shoru, HumbleMaster, Yma, Maffeoel, She-cat, Icingdeath, RangerDo'Urden,