Sojourn: The Legend of Drizzt Read Online Free PDF Page A

would not let the little one into the house until he had dried off. The rambunctious youngster mumbled something at the spoon-wielder’s back as she turned to enter the house, but his timing was not so great.
    The other two men, one sporting a thick, gray beard and the other clean-shaven, came in from the field and sneaked up behind the boy as he grumbled. Up into the air the boy went again and landed with a splash! back in the trough. Congratulating themselves heartily, the men went into the house to the cheers of all the others. The soaking boy merely groaned again and splashed some water into the face of a sow that had come over to investigate.
    Drizzt watched it all with growing wonderment. He had seen nothing conclusive, but the family’s playful manner and the resigned acceptance of even the loser of the game gave him encouragement. Drizzt sensed a common spirit in this group, with all members working toward a common goal. If this single farm proved a reflection of the whole village, then the place surelyresembled Blingdenstone, a communal city of the deep gnomes, far more than it resembled Menzoberranzan.
    The afternoon went much the same way as the morning, with a mixture of work and play evident throughout the farm. The family retired early, turning down their lamps soon after sunset, and Drizzt slipped deeper into the thicket of the mountainside to consider his observations.
    He still couldn’t be certain of anything, but he slept more peacefully that night, untroubled by nagging doubts concerning the dead gnolls.

    For three days the drow crouched in the shadows behind the farm, watching the family at work and at play. The closeness of the group became more and more evident, and whenever a true fight did erupt among the children, the nearest adult quickly stepped in and mediated it to a level of reasonableness. Invariably, the combatants were back at play together within a short span.
    All doubts had flown from Drizzt. “Ware my blades, rogues,” he whispered to the quiet mountains one night. The young drow renegade had decided that if any gnolls or goblins—or creatures of any other race at all—tried to swoop down upon this particular farming family, they first would have to contend with the whirling scimitars of Drizzt Do’Urden.
    Drizzt understood the risk he was taking by observing the farm family. If the farmer-folk noticed him—a distinct possibility—they surely would panic. At this point in his life, though, Drizzt was willing to take that chance. A part of him may even have hoped to be discovered.
    Early on the morning of the fourth day, before the sun had found its way into the eastern sky, Drizzt set out on his daily patrol, circumventing the hills and woodlands surrounding thelone farmhouse. By the time the drow returned to his perch, the work day on the farm was in full swing. Drizzt sat comfortably on a bed of moss and peered from the shadows into the brightness of the cloudless day.
    Less than an hour later, a solitary figure crept from the farmhouse and in Drizzt’s direction. It was the youngest of the children, the sandy-haired lad who seemed to spend nearly as much time in the trough as out of it, usually not of his own volition.
    Drizzt rolled around the trunk of a nearby tree, uncertain of the lad’s intent. He soon realized that the youngster hadn’t seen him, for the boy slipped into the thicket, gave a snort over his shoulder, back toward the farmhouse, and headed off into the hilly woodland whistling all the while. Drizzt understood then that the lad was avoiding his chores, and Drizzt almost applauded the boy’s carefree attitude. In spite of that, though, Drizzt wasn’t convinced of the small child’s wisdom in wandering away from home in such dangerous terrain. The boy couldn’t have been more than ten years old; he looked thin and delicate, with innocent, blue eyes peering out from under his amber locks.
    Drizzt waited a few moments, to let the boy get a lead and to see